Russia announces development of new Covid-19 test with accurate results in less than 2 hours, much faster than conventional PCR

Covid-19 testing in Russia just got much quicker. On Wednesday, the country's health watchdog Rospotrebnadzor announced the development of an innovative high-precision test which will speed up the process by three-to-four times.

According to the regulatory body, the new method needs between just 60 and 90 minutes to give a result, compared to up to five hours for a conventional PCR test.

“For clinical samples with high or medium viral load, values of sensitivity and specificity were 100%,” it revealed, with a press release explaining that the loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) technology makes detection of pathogen DNA or RNA much faster and easier. The kit has already been successfully tested in other institutes and meets all modern European requirements, the watchdog said.

“With the new test, it is possible to identify carriers of Covid-19 virus at an early stage, quickly limit social contacts and strengthen medical supervision,” the press release concluded.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, as of February 8, 105 million laboratory tests for Covid-19 had been conducted in Russia. According to official figures, over four million people have tested positive. Despite having the fifth most confirmed infections globally, behind the US, India, Brazil, and the UK, things are starting to look up. The country registered 14,494 cases on February 10, the first time the number has reached below 15,000 since October 17.

As well as an innovative new Covid-19 test, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted on Monday that the country is the first in the world to have three domestically developed vaccines, including the widely rolled out Sputnik V.

“Without a doubt, this is a major scientific achievement,” he said.

On Wednesday, it was revealed that around 2.2 million Russians have received their first dose of Sputnik V, with about 1.7 million also taking the second booster shot. According to Dmitry Logunov, the deputy research director at the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology –  the vaccine developer – “only about 300 people [who received the vaccine] got infected.”

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