India has the world's second highest coronavirus case count and appears to be on pace to overtake the United States in the next few weeks. To counter the rising number of infections, the country has scaled up testing. It hasn't been an easy process, but now 1 million samples are tested daily across more than 1,200 labs, and a newly-developed paper-based test that uses CRISPR gene-editing tools to detect the virus could become the third type of test — after PCR and antigen — to bolster the national diagnostic effort, BBC News reports.
The new test, called Feluda after a famous fictional Indian detective, employs a nasal swab and can return results in less than hour, making it faster than PCR tests. Its 96 percent sensitivity and 98 percent specificity rate means it will likely be more accurate than the rapid antigen tests. It would also reportedly be more affordable than both. In short, there's hope it could be the best of the both worlds. "The new test has the reliability of the PCR test, is quicker and can be done in smaller laboratories which don't have sophisticated machines," said Dr. Anurag Agarwal, the director of the Delhi-based CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, where Feluda was developed.
Dr. Stephen Kissler, a research fellow at Harvard Medical School, told BBC that if Feluda's "efficacy is demonstrated, it can have benefits that ripple around the world." The next step for the development team is to build a prototype of a similar test that can be done from home. Read more at BBC.
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