50.000 diagnostic tests for COVID-19, developed by Slovak scientists with the support of global cybersecurity company ESET, have been delivered to Nairobi, Kenya as part of SlovakAid's humanitarian aid program Ministryof Foreign and European Affairs of Slovakia.
The humanitarian aid mission took place on July 27 and - in addition to the 50.000 diagnostic tests - included a thermal cycler (PCR) to perform the tests as well as 20.000 FFP2 type respirators.
The diagnostic test was approved by the State Institute for Drug Control of the Slovak Republic on May 14, 2020 and entered in the EUDAMED European Registry on May 26, 2020 for distribution in Europe as an in vitro diagnostic test with signalCE mark. The diagnostic kit bears the designation vDetect COVID-19 RT-qPCR and developed through the collective researchof scientists from the Slovak company MultiplexDX, the Biomedical Research Center of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, the Science Center of the Comenius University in Bratislava and experts from the companies Lambda Life and ProScience Tech.
"As one of the key players in the development of the COVID-19 diagnostic test, ESET is pleased to see that countries in need of assistance, such as Kenya, can benefit from our efforts. We are ready to contribute to similar initiatives in the future, "said Palo Luka, CEO of ESET.
Pavol Čekan, founder of MultiplexDX, said “we have rapidly developed a new PCR test for COVID-19 disease that can reliably help diagnose patients at an early stage. Having supplied a large number of diagnostic tests for the needs of laboratories in Slovakia, we turned our efforts to increasing thetreatments to meet the needs of other countries that can benefit from the test, such as Kenya."
