Government OKs indigenous antibody test to help map corona spread

NEW DELHI: The Centre has approved an indigenous antibody detection test for Covid-19 which will allow authorities to do surveillance testing to see how much of the population has been exposed to coronavirus infection. Once these antibody test kits are manufactured indigenously, it will reduce India’s dependence on countries like China for these kits.


The National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune has developed and validated the indigenous IgG Elisa test ‘Covid Kavach Elisa’ for antibody detection for Covid-19. While real-time RT-PCR is the frontline test for clinical diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2, robust antibody tests are critical for surveillance.

The indigenous test will eliminate the need for low-quality Chinese kits — recently, Indian Council of Medical Research had to return about 500,000 such kits after they malfunctioned, with variable results.

According to official sources, the test was validated at two sites in Mumbai and was “found to have high sensitivity and specificity”.

“In addition, the test will have the advantage of testing 90 samples together in a single run of 2.5 hours. Moreover, Elisa-based testing is easily possible even at the district level as the ELISA kit has inactivated virus,” a source said. This will make it easier to distribute kits at the panchayat level. The Elisa (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) test is used to detect antibodies in the blood for a wide variety of infections, particularly HIV.