Department of Science and Technology, DST funded startup has developed kits for testing asymptomatic COVID-19 infections and geared up its efforts for production of vaccine.

Seagull Bio Solutions, a startup working on new biological technologies, is funded by Department of Science and Technology to undertake the development of Active Virosome Vaccine and Immuno diagnostic kits for COVID-19 emergency.

Active Virosome Technology developed by Seagull Bio is useful for developing a novel vaccine for the prevention of COVID-19 infection and also immunodiagnostic ELISA kits for COVID-19.

DST Secretary, Professor Ashutosh Sharma said that accurate diagnostics, breaking the chain of transmission, therapy and preventive measures including safe and effective vaccines are the foundational pillars of addressing the challenges of COVID-19. He said, of these, developing vaccines has the longest timeline and so it is essential to fast track that activity now.

Polymerase chain reaction, PCR based diagnostic kits which are currently available in India are rapid and enable detection of active COVID-19 infection. It cannot identify asymptomatic infections or those people who were exposed to or infected with COVID-19 in the past and may still be spreading the virus.

In contrast, Immunodiagnostic kits help in detection of antibodies to COVID-19 which can identify these infections also.