ICMR allows COVID testing at home via Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) kits: Here's how to do it

As India continues to reel under the unprecedented second wave of the COVID pandemic, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in a big move on Wednesday issued an advisory for COVID-19 Home Testing using Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs). As per the advisory issued by ICMR, home testing using RATs is advised only in symptomatic individuals and immediate contacts of laboratory-confirmed positive cases. 

ICMR issues new advisory on using RAT kits for COVID home testing

While stating that indiscriminate testing is not advised, the India Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said that the COVID home testing should be conducted as per the procedure described by the manufacturer in the user manual (pictorial and video link of the user manual is provided below against the name of the approved test kit). 

As per ICMT, "The home testing mobile app is available in the Google Play Store and Apple store and must be downloaded by all users. The mobile app is comprehensive guide of the testing procedure and will provide 'positive' or 'negative' result to the patient."

The newly issued advisory informed that all the users of RAT kits are advised to click a picture of the test strip after completing the test procedure with the same mobile phone, which has been used for downloading the mobile application and user registration. "Data in the app of your mobile phone will be centrally captured in a secured server, which is connected with the ICMR COVID-19 testing portal, where all data will be eventually stored, it added. 

Read the full advisory here:

COVID-19 situation in India

India so far has recorded over 2,54,96,330 positive cases, out of which, 2,19,86,363 have successfully recovered and 2,83,248 have died. As per the latest information from MoHFW, in the past 24 hours, 2,67,334 new cases, 3,89,851 fresh recoveries and 4,529 deaths have been reported. Currently, the total number of active cases in the country is 32,26,719. 

(Image: PTI)