Pakistan closing in to manufacturing of COVID-19 diagnostic kits commercially

By Masood Sattar Khan
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

Pakistan has developed indigenous COVID-19 diagnostic kits that have been approved by Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (DRAP) for commercial use. 

In a recent interview with Arab News, the Federal Minister for Science and Technology, Chaudhry Fawad Hussain has said that the locally manufactured diagnostic kits would considerably cut down the cost of coronavirus tests in the country. 

He said the kit was developed by experts at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) with more than 90 percent accuracy, which was about 20 percent better than the imported kits. 

The minister also expressed the hope that domestic ventilators would also be prepared within next few weeks, since clinical trials of four machines have already entered their final phase. 

He added that once these trials were over, the commercial entities would be asked to start manufacturing the ventilators.