ELISA Test Detects Past Infection

In News

ICMR and NIV develop theindigenous ELISA test, which maps the past infection.

In-Detail

• The National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune, and Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), have developed indigenous IgG ELISA test ‘COVID KAVACH ELISA’.
• The Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) can detect the antibodies the body develops in response to SARS-COV-2 or novel coronavirus infection.
• It detects the antibodies in the blood samples.
• The ELISA test is generally used in detecting HIV.
• For mass-scale production, the NIV had transferred the technology to Zydu Cadila-an innovation-driven global healthcare company.

ELISA Test

• The IgG ELISA is a robust indigenous test for antibody detection. It plays a critical role in the surveillance of the proportion of the population exposed to COVID-19.
• The kit has high sensitivity and accuracy. It is validated at two sites in Mumbai.
• The ELISA testing has the advantage of testing 90 samples together in a single run of 2.5 hours.
• When compared with the real-time RT-PCR, the ELISA test requires minimum bio-safety and bio-security requirements.
• ‘COVID KAVACH ELISA’ is a perfect example of ‘MADE IN INDIA’ project in record time.

Significance

• The rapid antibody tests imported from China were unreliable. So, the ELISA test developed by NIV gains its significance.
• The ELISA test can be used to understand the extent of the spread of the virus in the community.
• It will be deployed to screen 30,000 samples from 75 hot spot districts.
• As the ELISA kit has an inactivated virus, it is easily possible even at district levels to test for the antibodies in the blood samples.
• The ELISA test is based on anti-bodies. Hence, it can map past infection even in asymptomatic cases.

Conclusion

ELISA can help in detecting past infection as antibodies developed in response to the coronavirus infection will be present in the blood for a longer duration.