ISLAMABAD: A team of National University of Science and Technology (NUST) has successfully developed Molecular Diagnostic Assays for the detection of novel coronavirus.
The scientists at Attaur Rahman School of Applied Biosciences (ASAB) successfully achieved this initiative in collaboration with Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) Rawalpindi, Wuhan Institute of Virology China, DZIF Germany, and Columbia University USA.
According to NUST officials, the respected testing kits would cost one-fourth the current price for the kits used for detecting the COVID-19.
The officials said that the assays include both conventional and real-time PCR-based methods of Sybr Green and Taqman.
The officials further said that the kits have been efficiently tested on laboratory controls and patient samples.
These indigenously established assays are robust, sensitive to the target, and would soon be available at one fourth the price of imported ones.
“These assays have been developed at a time when the world is in the grip of an unprecedented pandemic novel coronavirus,” officials added.
Coronavirus has claimed more than 5,000 lives globally and has spread in almost 110 countries.
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