1,50,000 Coronavirus testing kits to be available within few weeks; Fawad

ISLAMABAD, Apr 02 (APP):Federal Minister for Science and Technology, Chaudhry Fawad Hussain Thursday said around 1,50,000 Coronavirus testing kits will be manufactured within the next few weeks.
Talking to the media after his visit to National University of Science and Technology (NUST), the federal minister said the brilliant team of NUST has prepared Corona testing kits and sent those to the Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) for approval.
The university itself checked the results of these testing kits by taking samples from different hospitals for their satisfaction and then sent to DRAP, he said.
“We will be able to use these testing kits soon after approval from DRAP”, he said.
Fawad Chaudhry said Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC) has received 48 designs of ventilators and approved three out of those.
These designs have been sent to DRAP for approval too, he said.
He said that the DRAP has constituted an expert committee both for testing kits and ventilators, which will be meeting soon.
The minister observed that time-to-market for medical devices, particularly ones that are invasive, is not a short process. Considering the inherently lengthy process, these particular kits are being fast-tracked so that the immediate requirement of the country can be met as early as possible, and dependence on imported kits can be reduced.

Appreciating the efforts of NUST researchers and scientists, the federal minister said this is the attitude we need from our universities.

Fawad Chaudhry commended NUST for coming up with highly innovative and effective products at a fast pace to purge the country from the pandemic that has been wreaking havoc globally.
The Minister also praised the scientists for having sequenced the complete genome of SARS-CoV-2, which would help develop more accurate diagnostics for this virus and will also impact vaccine development studies.

Talking about fake and low quality sanitisers being sold in the market, he encouraged NUST to expedite work on the commercialisation of high quality sanitisers developed by the university.

Earlier, Lt Gen Naweed Zaman, HI (M), (Retd), Rector NUST, along with the Principal Investigators (PIs), apprised the Minister about specifications and applications of projects displayed at the occasion.
These projects included tele-operated decontamination robot, aerial spraying drone, robust and cost-effective PCR-based testing kits for the detection of Coronavirus; bilingual (Urdu and English) COVID-19 self-screening app, the world’s first Urdu app for Android, named COVID CHECK PAKISTAN (app is available at http://ncra.org.pk/covid/); high-quality sanitisers for microbial control, produced as per the revised guidelines of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), USA; and ventilator systems for short-term stabilisation (ranging from few hours to 1 day) of COVID-19 patients, as per the design specifications specially issued for combatting COVID-19 by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulator Agency (MHRA), UK.
Later, the Minister witnessed a demonstration of the decontamination systems developed by scientists for disinfecting open and closed spaces. These technologies will be used to disinfect high risk and critically important locations, such as hospitals, in- and outdoor quarantine camps, airports, commercial spaces, etc., to lower the risk of Coronavirus spread.