Serbia Developing Coronavirus Antigen Test

A domestic coronavirus antigen test is being developed in Serbia, and Tanja Cirkovic Velickovic, a professor at the Faculty of Chemistry and the head of the team working on this project, says that the basic test could be finished by the end of the year.

– I believe that we have the potential to be the regional center for the production of this kind of a test for a quick detection of coronavirus, even the mutated varieties and new threats of that kind – Cirkovic Velickovic said for TV N1.

According to her, the test combines the characteristics of the antigen and the PCR tests, more concretely, the multiplication that the PCR testing entails – when the virus’ genes are multiplied a billion times in order to be detected.

Cirkovic Velickovic says that this will raise the sensitivity and, with that, the reliability of the test.

She added that her team had proposed another two innovations that are supposed to make the tests more reliable and that all the components of the test would be produced in Serbia, Tanjug reports.

She says that, at the moment, it’s impossible to estimate how long the results of such a test would take, because that phase of research begins next year.

– We will work on having the waiting time be as short as possible – she said and added that, by the summer, they would also start working on producing antigens.

When asked when the basic test might be finished, she says that it could happen by the end of the year, but that it is not 100% certain.

Hemijski fakultet Beograd

Tanja Ćirković Veličković

domestic coronavirus antigen test

coronavirus

PCR test