Indonesian founder Santo Purnama successfully developed a rapid self-test kit for Covid-19 in only 4 months. This allows individuals to self-test for Covid-19 infection of their homes, which takes as much as 10 minutes. Santo developed Covid-19 test kits at his Singapore-based company, Feeling yourselfin his official statement to the Good News of Southeast Asia.
With 25 years of individual contributions within the fields of technology, life sciences and human growth and development, with global operations in multiple countries, Santo has officially produced and distributed the Sensing Self Rapid Test Kit since February.
It has obtained licenses from three vital markets on the planet, i.e Europe (with CE certificate), India (approved by National Institute of Virology and Indian Council of Medical Research), and United States.
For the U.S. market, the FDA has approved Sensing Self test kits, provided their use should be in formal medical institutions. India, which currently has hundreds of positive Covid-19 cases, has purchased 3 million pieces of Sensing Self test kits.
As an Indonesian, Santo is able to offer this self-test kit to assist the Indonesian government within the fight against the Covid-19 epidemic. Four weeks have passed because the Indonesian government submitted its consent request and the matter continues to be under review.
Santo said: “The war against Covid-19 is a war against time. We must reduce the rate of growth of this pandemic by testing as widely as possible. With this in mind, we hope that the Indonesian government will approve our initiative to bring these independent test kits to Indonesia.”
In comparison, European pharmaceutical agencies only needed 2-3 weeks to grant approval. India spent only one week conducting trials, validation and authorizing final approvals. The Indian government immediately ordered tens of millions of test kits two days after the ultimate approval. Santo says it’s selling the test kits at cost since it is a social mission to avoid wasting more lives.
“We always care about the quality of each device and its accuracy, because we understand that it is a medical tool that is largely related to health. Early detection of the Covid-19 virus can mean the difference between life and death,” Santo added.
Sensing Self test kits can provide fast and accurate detection results because they use enzymatic evaluation. With a more cost-effective price of roughly Rp 160,000 ($10), test results will be obtained faster than other test kits.
Another alternative to the Covid-19 test is a nostril swab. However, this method costs Rp 1.2 million ($75) per test and the method takes as much as 1 hour, making it less efficient.
Currently, Santo’s team is developing one other solution to fight this pandemic, which is an economical nucleic acid test (NAT) for zero-day detection of Covid-19. This test can detect Covid-19 infection on the primary day of patient exposure with an accuracy of 99%. The Sensing Self team plans to launch this product soon.
Santo Purnama and Shripal Gandhi are the co-founders of Sensing Self. Purnama has a background in computer science and technology from Purdue University and Stanford University, while Gandhi is a top graduate in chemical engineering and biological sciences from the University of Bombay and the University of California.
