Meet Minal Dakhave Bhosale, The Woman Behind India’s First Coronavirus Test Kit

The increasing number of COVID-19 casualties worldwide forced countries to put their citizens under complete lockdown. And as of now, Russia, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, New Zealand and many other countries have put their citizens into mandatory home quarantine. However, the top officials of the World Health Organization recently said that isolation is not enough.

As the world races to ramp up testing for Covid-19, India was being criticised for its poor record of testing people for Coronavirus. India tests around 6.8 per million, one of the lowest rates in the world. Hence, to bridge this gap, a Pune-based virologist developed the country’s first Coronavirus testing kit.

The main woman behind it

Virologist Minal Dakhave Bhosale, research and development chief of Mylab Discovery in Pune headed the team that designed the kit called ‘Patho Detect’. The kit was developed in just six weeks.

At Mylab, she is responsible for product development of molecular diagnostic products, including the Covid-19 test. Bhosale has the experience of working on the swine flu disease at NIV, Pune, during the 2009 outbreak.

She delivered kit, then her baby

However, it wasn’t the only deadline Minal was fighting with. She began working on the kit in February, just days after leaving the hospital with a pregnancy complication. And just a day before delivering her baby girl, she submitted the kit for evaluation to the National Institute of Virology (NIV) on 18 March, the BBC reported.

Mylab’s research and development chief Minal said,

“Our kit gives the diagnosis in two and a half hours while the imported testing kits take six-seven hours”

Ms Bhosale, who headed the team that designed the coronavirus testing kit called Patho Detect, said it was done “in record time” – six weeks instead of three or four months.

And the scientist was battling with her own deadline too. Last week she gave birth to a baby girl – and only began work on the programme in February, just days after leaving hospital with a pregnancy complication. Her team worked very hard to make the project successful. Bhosale said,

“It was an emergency, so I took this on as a challenge. I have to serve my nation”

Within an hour of submitting the proposal for FDA approval, she got admitted to a hospital for a c-section and the very next day, Minal delivered her daughter.

First Indian firm to get commercial approval

Mylab Discovery, in the western city of Pune, became the first Indian firm to get full approval to make and sell testing kits. It shipped the first batch of 150 to diagnostic labs in Pune, Mumbai, Delhi, Goa and Bengaluru (Bangalore) this week.

Each Mylab kit can test 100 samples and costs 1,200 rupees ($16; £13) – that’s about a quarter of the 4,500 rupees that India pays to import Covid-19 testing kits from abroad.

Dr Gautam Wankhede, Mylab’s director for medical affairs, also said that it can supply up to 100,000 Covid-19 testing kits a week and can produce up to 200,000 if needed.

Kudos to this new mom.