An Iranian biomedicine company has started mass production of serological test kits in the time of the new coronavirus pandemic.
The kits are used to detect the rate of immunity against infections in various groups of population.
Iran’s Deputy President for Scientific Affairs Sorena Sattari opened the production line for the diagnostics on Saturday in a factory run by the Pishtaz Teb Co. located to the west of the capital Tehran.
Sattari said Pishtaz Teb would help Iran end imports of serological testing kits as the company is set to produce eight million on a monthly basis.
He said the diagnostics produced in Iran would be capable of testing close to 100 individuals in a matter of 75 minutes, a feature which, he said, was quite rare in rival kits produced overseas.
Health authorities employ the serological test to determine whether or not groups of population, including vulnerable individuals and health staff at the frontline of fighting a pandemic, have developed enough antibodies to maintain immunity.
Iran has reported more than 70,000 infections related to COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, since it was found in the country on February 19. Nearly 42,000 people have recovered from the illness and more than 4,300 have died, according to figures provided by the Health Ministry on Saturday.
The government eased some of its strict lockdown measures related to the pandemic on Saturday, allowing a specific group of businesses and public departments to resume work.
However, authorities say testing programs will expand in the coming weeks to cover more people so that the government becomes sure the infection is under control.
Sattari said Iran’s capacity for testing suspected coronavirus patients will increase through more production for normal COVID-19 testing kits.
He said Pishtaz Teb had increased its output for the widely-used PCR testing kits for coronavirus to 100,000 per week.
The Iranian official said with a growth in the production of the diagnostics, Iran can begin exporting them to other countries in the near future.