Local production of swabs helps reduce cost | Fusion - WeRIndia

Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasized the need for local production and Make in India, while addressing the nation on May 12.

The Centre also announced an economic package of ₹20 lakh crore for the revival of Indian economy.

The economic package, Aatma nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan is intended for self-reliant India.

Locally made products do not just help the country to be empowered, but also improve the economic conditions of several local people.

Here is an instance of that. The swabs that are used for COVID-19 testing were being imported from China earlier at the rate of ₹17.

But, the Indian government wanted to make it locally and contacted the largest Indian polyester manufacturer to design the swab.

The manufacturer sent the design. The material and design have been approved by National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune. And the manufacturing orders have been given to MSMEs.

Now, India is manufacturing these swabs at just ₹2. It clearly shows how indigenous production has drastically reduced the cost of these swabs.

In addition to that, it can help accumulate more number of swabs and thereby conduct more number of tests.

Varun Jhaveri, an Officer on Special Duty to the CEO revealed this on Twitter.

Similarly, the NIV successfully developed the first indigenous antibody testing kit – ELISA – to combat COVID-19.

These kits are similar to rapid antibody tests. They can detect the antibodies in the blood and help find out whether a person was infected with COVID-19 or not.

The technology has been validated and transferred to Zydus Cadila for a mass scale production.

The local coronavirus test kits can benefit the country to a large extent.

Both the indigenous swabs and test kits help the country perform more number of tests with minimal cost.

Image Credit:– Photo by United Nations on Unsplash (Free for commercial use)

Image Reference: https://unsplash.com/photos/m6OZNfmo2Dk