According to Lt. Gen. Prof. Dr. Do Quyet, Director of the Vietnam Military Medical University – the leader in the research, the quality of this nCoV test kit from Vietnam is as high as the one from WHO, yet it is more sensitive and stable to be used in dissimilar kinds of real-time machine systems existing in several regions of Vietnam. This will greatly reduce testing time and operation cost.
It is able to run 96 samples simultaneously, 24 units more than its counterpart from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the US.
In addition, instead of carrying out 2 basic reactions following WHO’s instruction, the Vietnamese test kit needs only 1 to successfully detect this novel corona virus. This is the result of a detailed analysis and consultation with partners in the Virology Institute of Charite Berlin University, the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine and others from Singapore, France.
Prof. Dr. Do Quyet affirmed that the Vietnamese test kit is able to detect 5 copies in one reaction, equivalent to the clinical trial of 300-400 copies/ml of one infected sample. This demonstrates extremely high precision in any negative result, which means the quarantined person is healthy.
The great compatibility of this kit is also impressive in that with any real-time machine system, the kit needs only 1 hour to deliver the result, besides the 1-hour duration of sterilization, virus deactivation, and RNA isolation processes.
Director General of Viet A Corporation Phan Quoc Viet, the unit responsible for the kit production, stated that his company is able to manufacture around 10,000 items per day, with the maximum capacity of 3 times higher than this quantity. This can perfectly answer the domestic demand as well as export or international medical aid in case nCoVid-19 does spread to various places in the world.
Mr. Viet added that thanks to the financial support by the Ministry of Science and Technology and other partners, each kit is estimated to cost around VND400,000-600,000 (approx. US$17-26), which is ¼ the price of an international one.
This is the first time in Vietnam that the effective cooperation between scientists, businesses, and state leaders has resulted in such an impressive product.
The Ministry of Health has issued a temporary permit for the mass production of this kit in 6 months. During this time, the research team continues to perform screening tests and produce in vitro samples to evaluate the effectiveness of this kit in real life while preparing appropriate documents for the circulation certificate registration.
At the moment, besides Vietnam, WHO, China, the US, Japan, and Germany are also able to make quick test kits for nCoV.
