On Monday, a full page ad in a leading daily publicised home testing for #Covid, over a year after the pandemic, rapid antigen test kits are available for people to order online. But really how reliable are they? @TheKenWeb we found a few disconcerting answers #Thread
While the process to test is simple, the questions I had were - Did I take enough sample while testing from the nose swab? I was also wondering is the test accurate? What is the guarantee this test kit is working? Graphic by @aishyinabubble#covid#hometest
India has approved three companies to sell home testing kits. Only one has pumped kits in the market yet. Mylab Discovery Solutions. Before this launch, they have sold 50 million test kits (85% for Covid) and made a windfall 100x revenue in FY21 - Rs 850 crore as compared to FY20
Mylab and Meril - two local companies have priced their home test kit at Rs 250 (~$4) without disclosing the sensitivity and specificity data of these tests in their instructions for use pamphlet. Mylab co-founder even said you could 'blindly,' trust these tests. #COVID19
The home test is to be used with an app. So I filled in my credentials, got a cassette ID, ran my test on a cassette and clicked a photo to upload for reporting purposes to the company and ICMR. What happens next? Kaboom. My cassette is invalid. Test bounced! No result recorded!
In today's (free) story, @TheKenWeb we unravel the intricacies and dark spots of testing for #COVID19 at home. A negative test means you need to go and confirm it with RT-PCR in lab. But are people doing that? or Is home testing leading to false assurance? the-ken.com/story/covid-ho…
It was interesting to run the #COVID19 test at home, but lack of accurate data in product insert sours a user experience. Laid out everything neatly, shook buffer solution, took nose swab (ouch it hurt!) inserted in solution, broke swab, inverted tube, put drop on cassette, Wait.
Would you order a #covid home testing kit to self administer a rapid antigen test to yourself (just like how we have pregnancy tests and diabetes self checking machines?)
See the neat control test band. This indicates the antigen test is negative. This also indicates one needs to get RT-PCR retest done for confirmation. But how many people do that anyway. No data on accuracy also means how much do I rely on this result? #COVID19#hometest
In 2019, I spent 8 weeks in the UK that culminated in BJP's second time win. My research revolved around the RSS strongholds in UK and delving into the psyche of the right wing supporters. I conducted multiple interviews in rallies then. I had a strange sense of discomfort 🧵
I recount countless Bjp supporters gathered at the banks of Thames River in show of support for PM Modi. Loudspeakers blaring jarring music, people wearing t-shirts with the leader's face pasted over it. These were UK based Indians most of whom would never go to India to vote
When BJP won, there were garba dances and celebrations with loud music at Piccadily Circus. These were the people who also attend Hindu Swayam Sevak Sangh camps (HSS-UK) is the foreign version of RSS. They have multiple shakhas running across UK.
If you are flying out of an international airport, you must read this story on the dos/donts and the rampant capitalisation at the expense of hapless passengers occuring during #COVID19 ✈️ - Let us begin with ground scenario at #Delhi International Airport ~ 4000 tests daily - 🧵
Delhi airport has 200 Abbott ID now machine (each costing Rs 2.5 lakh) which loads one sample at a time - this Rapid PCR test can give results in 13 mins, but swelling crowds can cause delays sometimes upto 3-4 hours. Genestrings Diagnostics has monopoly charging Rs 3500 per test
This means a revenue of Rs 1.5 crore daily for the company by testing incoming/outgoing passengers, but there is also long waiting period at times, and congestion to say the least. @TheKenWeb found touts offering fake negative reports to passengers tested positive for 10x price
On May 13, Niti Aayog's Vinod Paul, an influential member of the Covid task force said that India will have over 2 billion vaccine doses by August - December, but the spreadsheet math really does not add up. We listed the reasons @TheKenWeb#Thread#COVID19#vaccine
Haffkine secured Rs 154 cr in grants; but if PSU was to be auctioned it could have secured up to a lakh crore, in 2012, money could have been pumped into making an international institute but Maharashtra govt was laxed. Haffkine will take at least a year to produce Covaxin now.
“Ultimately you want a situation where you have both old and new platforms. You should have inactivated vaccines, vectored vaccines, mRNA vaccines, and protein [subunit] vaccines. But that depends on how the government decides what they are going to invest in,” says @GKangInd
The pandemic has led to proliferation of unfettered consumption of herbal drugs in #India - when we @TheKenWeb spoke to five liver doctors at leading hospitals we realised we are in for a storm of a different kind - that of herbal medicine induced liver injuries #Thread
Dr Arvinder Soin, top liver transplant surgeon in India and globally, told us that at least 6 cases of Giloy-induced liver injuries which required transplants had come to Medanta Hospital in Gurugram during 2020, of which two had died waiting for one.
Dr Abha Nagral in Mumbai was seeing a similar trend. A 20-year-old with a history of few weeks of immunity boosters consumption presented in emergency with jaundice. She is studying at least ten such cases and planning to publish the findings in a journal soon, she said.
India's software #COVID19 vaccine software CoWIN (designed by Trigyn Technologies, hosted on Amazon Web Services) has been hitting snags. @PratapVikramSin@OBanerji and me find out what doctors, health workers are facing on ground & how this will effect vaccination drive #thread
Doctors receive erroneous text messages saying vaccination has been delayed (later getting a call saying its actually not), another scheduling at a later date when doc has already got his dose #CowinApp#CoWIN - Graphic by @ShirtShanks
Ministry of Health & that of IT has been super secretive about CoWIN's making, we didn't know beyond UNDP's involvement in making the app, until sources told us that Trigyn Tech and Amazon Web Services are involved, despite reservations expressed by Ministry of Health.
On 1 pm - Sunday - over six #Covaxin trial participants (gas tragedy victims) from poor neighbourhoods behind abandoned Union Carbide factory in Bhopal huddled into a tiny zoom call screen. Following death of 1 participant they recall how they were 'lured' to take the jab #thread
In Dec, a public announcement vehicle entered their narrow bylanes and blared - “Corona ka tika lagao, sade saatso rupaie paao,” loosely translated into get an injection against Covid and earn Rs 750. As the month went by, a few participants started experiencing adverse events.
A day after Bharat Biotech said a Bhopal gas tragedy victim's death who participated in clinical trials was 'unrelated' to vaccine, this has opened up a Pandora's box on ethics and legal issues surrounding clinical trials #COVID19#vaccine