SpiceHealth has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with CSIR - Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), a constituent lab of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, for conducting dry swab direct Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) tests in its mobile testing laboratories.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) recently approved CSIR-CCMB to commercially use the game-changing technology of dry swab RNA-extraction free Covid testing method that has the potential to scale up testing by 2 to 3 fold with no additional resources and significantly reduce the time and costs of such tests.
SpiceHealth is a health care company founded by the promoters of SpiceJet and led by Avani Singh. SpiceHealth’s first mobile testing laboratory was inaugurated by Union Home Minister Amit Shah on November 23.
SpiceHealth currently has five functioning labs at government requested locations around Delhi NCR, conducting 10,000-15,000 tests per day.
Avani Singh, CEO, SpiceHealth in a statement said, “The launch of the first-of-its-kind dry swab RT-PCR testing facility at our SpiceHealth laboratories is to provide high-quality and low-cost healthcare at a large scale. The dry swab method reduces testing time by 1.5 hours, significantly reduce cost and further revolutionise RT-PCR testing. SpiceHealth is proud to be the first Indian laboratory to incorporate this method into its labs.”
“Over the past few weeks, SpiceHealth has launched 5 mobile testing laboratories across Delhi NCR, with 10 more labs in the pipeline for the next two weeks. Currently conducting 10,000-15,000 tests a day, SpiceHealth hopes to make a significant dent in Covid testing with quick scale-up and innovation. SpiceHealth is also gearing up for helping with widespread deployment of the Covid-19 vaccination in the country.”
Dr Rakesh Mishra, Director, CSIR-CCMB said, “The dry swab testing method will be a game-changer in testing during the Covid-19 pandemic. The method is safer, faster, and cheaper than the current testing method without compromising the quality of test results. SpiceHealth will use this technology in their mobile testing labs, and benefit large number of people.”
The dry-swab direct RT-PCR method is easy to implement as it eliminates the requirement of new kits and doesn’t require any additional training to be provided to the persons conducting the test.
In order to fight the Covid-19 virus, SpiceHealth had launched SpiceOxy – a compact, portable, non-invasive ventilation device, which is an effective solution for patients with mild to moderate breathing issues. Additionally, SpiceHealth had also introduced fingertip pulse oximeter, a handy device making it easier for people to measure the oxygen level of the blood.
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