Bhubaneswar: OmiSure kits, India’s first home-grown testing kit that can differentiate the highly transmissible Omicron strain of the novel coronavirus, have already reached Odisha and its dry run is in progress.
In the first tranche, test kits for 50,000 tests have been received by Odisha from Tata Medical and Diagnostics Ltd (TATA MD).
Health Services Director Bijay Mohapatra informed that the kits will first be used for internal study. Subsequently, they will be dispatched to districts with a high number of Covid-19 cases.
It is worthwhile to mention that Odisha State Medical Corporation Limited (OSMCL) had placed an order for 5 lakh testing kits with Tata Medical and Diagnostics Ltd (TATA MD)-the manufacturer of OmiSure.
Tata Medical and Diagnostics Ltd (Tata MD) has confirmed that the Government of Odisha is the first State in the country to order its OmiSure RT- PCR tests developed in partnership with ICMR.
As OmiSure specifically identifies Omicron there is no need for genome sequencing of the sample which is a time taking process.
RT-PCR OmiSure is the only test approved by the ICMR for RT-PCR detection of the Omicron variant which targets 3 gene with a single tube, fully multiplexed assay in a unique design that identifies simultaneous S-gene Target Failure (SGTF) and S-Gene Mutation Amplification (SGMA).
