While we laud India’s COVID-19 frontliners, here is a shout-out to the woman who was waging a different battle with time to create the country’s first COVID-19 testing kit. On March 18, Mylab Discovery, became the first Indian firm to obtain full approval to create and sell coronavirus testing kits called Patho Detect. And this was possible because of the efforts of Mylab’s & research and development chief, Minal Dakhave Bhosale who developed it in just six weeks, and submitted it hours before giving birth to a baby girl.
Minal Dakhave Bhosale started working on it in February, despite developing a pregnancy complication. But with the constant support of her 10-member team, she managed to design the kit and submit it for evaluation by the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in record time. Then she went on to take the second challenge head-on, that is, delivering her daughter. “It was an emergency, so I took this on as a challenge. I have to serve my nation,” she said, according to a BBC report.
In a country that is grappling with the rising COVID-19 cases and the challenge of inadequate testing kits and equipment, Patho Detect might act as ray of hope. Each kit can test 100 samples and costs Rs 1,200 rupees as compared to the Rs 4,500 spent on importing testing kits from other countries.
