MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 31st March, 2020) Russian consumer rights watchdog Rospotrebnadzor announced the creation of a highly accurate test to diagnose the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
"A new set of reagents to detect the coronavirus infection was developed by... Rospotrebnadzor's Central Research Institute of Epidemiology... The diagnostic kit successfully passed clinical trials and was registered for use in the Russian Federation on March 25," the watchdog said.
"The new test meets all modern requirements for sensitivity and specificity and makes it possible to detect not only SARS-CoV-2... but to differentiate it from other SARS-Cov-related viruses, as well as MERS-Cov (middle East respiratory syndrome)," it said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11 declared an outbreak of COVID-19 a pandemic. According to the latest WHO data, more than 690,000 cases of infection have been confirmed worldwide, and over 33,000 people have died.
A total of 1,836 patients with the novel coronavirus disease have been registered in Russia, 1,226 of them in Moscow.
