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Coronavirus pandemic

Russian company creates breakthrough rapid response test to detect COVID-19

Sistema-Biotech is completing the development of a rapid response test system, which will make it possible to pinpoint the virus in saliva within just 30 minutes, according to the company's manager

© Alexander Pogozhev/TASS

MOSCOW, March 19. /TASS/. In the near future, the Sistema-Biotech company (owned by AFK Sistema) intends to register a rapid response test system with the Russian Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Wellbeing (Rospotrebnadzor) that makes it possible to detect coronavirus within two hours, AFK Sistema Managing Partner Artem Sirazutdinov informed TASS.

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Russia builds up network of laboratories making COVID-19 tests — Kremlin

"The Sistema-Biotech company plans to submit the registration dossier for its own SBT-DX-nCoV test system to Rospotrebnadzor in the near future, which makes it possible to detect the presence of the coronavirus in human biological material. Such tests will make it possible to get an answer within two hours in almost any medical laboratory, which has the appropriate equipment," he said.

Sirazutdinov stressed that the company did not consider the project to be commercial, its task is to provide the country with a reliable tool for detecting the virus. He noted that the accuracy of the test system would be 90-95%.

He added, that in the event of a positive conclusion, "the new test system can be put into production in the immediate future." "Negotiations have been held with a number of partners regarding a potential contract to manufacture the test systems in the required amount," he said.

In addition, Sistema-Biotech is completing the development of a rapid response test system, which will make it possible to pinpoint the virus in saliva within just 30 minutes. Such mobile test systems can be effectively used, for example, at airports for testing passengers arriving from countries with an unfavorable epidemiological situation and at workplaces, Sirazutdinov added.

The current coronavirus illness was registered in central China at the end of December 2019. On March 11, the World Health Organization declared it a pandemic. COVID-19 infection cases have been recorded in more than 170 countries. According to the latest data, over 210,000 people have contracted the virus, about 8,500 of them have died. A total of 147 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia so far.

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