COVID-19 Test Takes 15 Minutes In China, So Why In India It Takes 24 Hours?

The COVID-19 outbreak has claimed the lives of over 1,000 people worldwide and infected around 100,000. While no country takes the pandemic lightly, what makes the difference here is what the governments use to test for the Coronavirus.

In China, it takes fifteen minutes for health officials to have a result of with accuracy of 80% while in India, we must wait for a day to know whether a person carries the virus.

What China uses is a 15-minute test kit, which Japan and Italy also use. However, the test is denied by the British government. Britain’s swab test takes from 24 hours to 48 hours to deliver a result.

The reason the British government cited is that the rapid test adopted by China, Italy, and Japan are not accurate enough and it does not have the approval from FDA (US Food and Drug Administration).

In India, the test used in labs is the RT-PCR (short for Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction). The test requires PCR (polymerase chain reaction), a gene-based assay, and RT-PCR (reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction), a more sensitive form.

As stated by WHO (World Health Organization), confirmation from gene sequencing or RT-PCR for blood and respiratory specimens is needed before a person is hospitalized.

Experts at the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune are working hard against the clock to make sure the accuracy of test for COVID-19.

According to Raman R Gangakhedkar, head of Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases-I (ECD-I), the NIV can test 750 samples a day, if needed, the capacity could be doubled up.

India has 43 cases of COVID-19 as of March 9.

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