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.
