US gives bird flue diagnostic kits to India

New Delhi, Mar 3 (UNI) The United States has provided to India vital diagnostic reagents for rapid and accurate detection of the H5N1 avian influenza virus infection in humans, the US Embassy said today.

The embassy has given real time reverse transcription poloymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR_ primer and probe set diagnostic reagents from the US Department of Health and Human Service's (HHS) Centres for Disease Control and prevention (CDC) to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

The reagents, which were shipped from Atlanta, will be sufficient to test 400 human specimens and are capable of producing results within four hours.

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