New Delhi: The ICMR gave nod to use Rapid Antigen Kits to conduct Covid – 19 test at home on Wednesday. The ICMR used issued detailed guidelines to fight against Covid – 19 on who can use it and how.

The ICMR has made it clear that only symptomatic individuals and immediate contacts of people who tested positive in the laboratory should use the home test. Indiscriminate testing is not advised, said ICMR.

All individuals who test positive may be considered as true positives and no repeat testing is required. All symptomatic individuals who test negative by RAT should get themselves immediately tested by RTPCR, ICMR said.

A Pune based Mylab Discovery Solutions Ltd created CoviSelfTM (PathoCatch) Covid – 19 OTC Antigen LF device, said ICMR. The home test should be conducted according to the process detailed in an app, which should be downloaded from the Google play store and Apple store.

The mobile app is a comprehensive guide of the testing procedure and will provide a positive or negative test result to the patient. All users are advised to click a picture of the test strip after completing the test procedure with the same mobile phone,” the ICMR said.

The data from the phone will be centrally captured in a secure server which is connected with the ICMR Covid – 19 testing portal, where all data will be eventually stored. ICMR also assured that patient confidentiality will be fully maintained. The country logged 2.67 lakh new cases on Wednesday, taking the overall count to 2.54 crore and the number of active cases to 1, 27, 046.