Vietnam develops super test-kit for coronavirus

Vietnam has developed a coronavirus test kits that is three times quicker and cheaper than the current test kits being used, Vn Express has reported.

The new test kit provides results in 70 minutes instead of four hours and costs 350,000 VND as opposed to 1 million.

Developed by scientists as Hanoi’s School of Biotechnology and Food Technology, the Reverse Transcription Loop-mediated Isothermal Amplification (RT-LAMP) test kit magnifies ribonucleic acid pathogens, which are crucial to identification.

Work on the kits began on Jan.13 after the Genbank sequence database published the genetic code of the virus.

Tests will be carried out before mass production of the kits.

On Friday Vietnam announced that it had successfully cultured the coronavirus in a lab, making it easier to research the virus and develop a vaccine.

Thirteen infections have been confirmed in the country so far, with the global death toll reaching over 800.