1. To test more people, a fast and cheap paper-based coronavirus test will soon be available across India, with scientists hopeful it will help turn the tide on the pandemic in one of the world’s worst-hit nations.
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2. The outbreak in the country has spread from densely packed megacities like Mumbai to rural communities with limited medical services.
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3. The locally developed Feluda, named for a detective in a famous Indian novel series, resembles a home pregnancy paper-strip test and delivers results within an hour.
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4. Researchers are optimistic that its low cost and ease of use can help stem the pathogen’s spread in poor and remote areas.
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5. Currently, India diagnoses COVID-19 with either RT-PCR tests, which are highly accurate but require advanced lab machinery, or antigen tests, which can give results in just a few minutes at a limited cost but with significantly lower accuracy.
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6. Feluda uses the gene-editing technique CRISPR-Cas9, which recently earned its inventors Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
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7. Feluda has been granted government regulatory approval and Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said last week it could be rolled out in the next few weeks by Tata Group.
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