Covid-19 testing: Diagnose coronavirus in just 20 minutes! New low-cost test developed by scientists

Stinear, who was part of the research, added that the very rapidity of the test method leaves scope for some dilution in the detection sensitivity.

Even as scientists and health professionals from different countries are inching closer to get hold of an effective Covid-19 vaccine, a team of scientists from the University of Melbourne has devised a portable low cost nasal swab test method for Coronavirus testing that is providing substantially accurate results in less than 20 minutes time. The Covid-19 method which has been devised by the scientists has been named N1-STOP-LAMP and its findings have also been published in the journal of Medical Microbiology, according to a report from news agency PTI.

What makes the development path breaking is the portable nature and cheap price of the test method which could prove extremely useful in low income countries where lack of laboratories hinders intensive testing. The accuracy of the test method has also been found to be excellent with one just nasal swab giving accurate results in 20 minutes, according to the report.

Tim Stinear, a professor at the University of Melbourne in Australia told PTI that aggressive and accurate testing facility is key in battling the pandemic and the research could come to use in areas which have limited testing capabilities and take a lot of turn around time to ascertain the test result.

As part of the research, the N1-STOP-LAMP method was tested on 157 confirmed cases of Coronavirus and the testing method correctly identified 87 per cent of the tests as positive. The turnaround time was also very fast with an average time of 14 minutes recorded for 93 test samples from the lot. However the researchers have said that despite the high accuracy shown in the test results, the new testing method cannot replace the gold standard PCR testing. Stinear, who was part of the research, added that the very rapidity of the test method leaves scope for some dilution in the detection sensitivity.