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GS Paper: GS3-15.Science and Technology- Developments and their Applications and Effects in Everyday Life.

  • Electrolytic splitting of Water

    Scientists from The Centre for Nano and Soft Matter Sciences (CeNS), an autonomous institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), have found out a low cost and efficient way to generate hydrogen from water using Molybdenum dioxide as a catalyst.

    Practice question for mains:

    Q. Hydrogen is the future of clean and sustainable energy. Discuss.

    Electrolytic splitting of water

    • Electrolysis of water is the decomposition of water into oxygen and hydrogen gas due to the passage of an electric current.
    • This technique can be used to make hydrogen gas, the main component of hydrogen fuel, and breathable oxygen gas, or can mix the two into oxyhydrogen, which is also usable as fuel, though more volatile and dangerous.
    • It is a promising method to generate hydrogen but requires energy input that can be brought down in the presence of a catalyst.

    Using Molybdenum Catalyst

    • The scientists have shown that Molybdenum dioxide (MoO2) nanomaterials annealed in hydrogen atmosphere can act as efficient catalysts to reduce the energy input to bring about water splitting into Hydrogen.
    • Molybdenum dioxide has the potential to replace the currently employed catalyst platinum, which is expensive and has limited resources.
    • MoO2 is a conducting metal oxide that is one of the low-cost catalysts with good efficiency and stability for hydrogen evolution.
    • The catalyst is highly stable for a longer duration of reaction with sustained hydrogen evolution from water.
    • About 80 % efficient conversion of electrical energy into hydrogen has been achieved using this catalyst.

    Significance

    • Hydrogen is considered as the future of clean and sustainable energy as it can be generated from water and produces water on energy generation without any carbon footprint.
    • Hydrogen can be directly used as a fuel similar to natural gas or as input for fuel cells to generate electricity.
    • It is the future energy for a clean environment and an alternative to fossil fuels, underlining the necessity of low-cost catalysts for its production.

  • CoAST India (Collaboration/Covid Action Support Group) Platform

    India Observatory has come up with a GIS-enabled dashboard called CoAST India to monitor migrants in India.

    Here, UPSC may create an illusion on:

    India Observatory – open-source database (misleading name): It may be asked in relation to some ISRO project.

    CoAST India – COVID related info (again misleading): UPSC may ask it in context to Cyclone Warning Systems.

    CoAST India

    • The platform is a map reflecting the movement of migrants in real-time on their long journeys, often on foot, along with facilities and relief organisations on their routes.
    • It is a collaboration with Anand-based Forest Ecological Security (FES) as its main nodal point.
    • It draws information from 55 organisations on the ground, mostly in villages, and aims to make such data available so that it would enable governments and small local civil society groups to be of assistance.
    • The map matches time and spatial data, on administrative facilities in the area, transportation and healthcare facilities of an area and summaries, on the fly, in real-time of people passing by.

    Features of the portal

    Four elements are sought to be brought together in this portal:

    • Location of migrants and vulnerable people, their specific needs,
    • Location of key infrastructure on the way which can double up as a rest-centre, or
    • Quarantine space and location of relief and
    • Rehabilitation providing NGOs and civil society organisations

    About India Observatory

    • The Foundation for Ecological Security (FES), an NGO working on conserving natural resources at the grassroots, has brought together a unique ecosystem of tools – open data platform India Observatory – to help understand the status of local-level resources and facilitate the action plans for conserving them.
    • The data made available on India Observatory platform has been pooled from various sources and dates as far back as the 1960s.
    • India Observatory was set up in December 2019, with FES focused on ecological issues about forests, water bodies, conservation, etc. that needed “a bird’s eye view or a satellite’s vision”.
    • It is a research unit at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

  • International Day of Light and its significance

    The UN marks the International Day of Light (IDL) — an annual initiative held globally to raise awareness on the critical role played by light-based technologies in everyday life.

    The IDL as mentioned in the news creates no scope for a possible prelim question, but the purpose behind its celebration does.  i.e. LASER technology. LIDAR is the latest development in the LASER technology. UPSC may puzzle you here by asking the working principle of LIDAR.

    International Day of Light (IDL)

    • The IDL is administered from the International Basic Science Programme (IBSP) of UNESCO, and its Secretariat is located at the Abdus Salam International Centre of Theoretical Physics (ICTP) at Trieste, Italy.
    • The IDL highlights the contribution of such technologies in various avenues such as science, technology, art, and culture, thus helping achieve the UNESCO goals of education, equality, and peace.
    • The day selected, May 16, marks the anniversary of the first successful operation of the LASER in 1960 by physicist and engineer Theodore Maiman.
    • The LASER is a perfect example of how a scientific discovery can yield revolutionary benefits to society in communications, healthcare and many other fields.

    Why is the IDL celebrated?

    • In 2015, to raise global awareness of the achievements of light science and its applications, the UN observed the International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies 2015 (IYL 2015).
    • The event helped establish links and collaborations between decision-makers, industry leaders, scientists, artists, social businesses, NGOs, and the public at large.
    • Following the success of IYL 2015, Ghana, Mexico, New Zealand and Russia placed a resolution before the UNESCO Executive Board supporting the idea of an International Day of Light.
    • It was adopted on September 19, 2016, at the Board’s 200th session at the UNESCO HQ in Paris, France.
    • The Board decision was endorsed by the UNESCO General Conference at its 39th session on November 7, 2017, and the first IDL was held on May 16, 2018.

    Back2Basics: LASER

    • A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation.
    • It is an acronym for “light amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation.
    • The laser stimulates atoms or molecules to emit light at particular wavelengths and amplifies that light, typically producing a very narrow beam of radiation.
    • The emission generally covers an extremely limited range of visible, infrared, or ultraviolet wavelengths.
    • Many different types of lasers have been developed, with highly varied characteristics.
    • A laser is widely used in industrial cutting, surgical removal of tissues etc.
    • LIDAR is the most famous application of LASERs.

    LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging)

    • It is a remote sensing method that uses light in the form of a pulsed laser to measure ranges (variable distances) to the Earth.
    • It bounces pulsed laser light off the ground, revealing contours hidden by dense foliage.
    • These light pulses—combined with other data recorded by the airborne system— generate precise, three-dimensional information about the shape of the Earth and its surface characteristics.
    • LIDAR systems allow scientists and mapping professionals to examine both natural and manmade environments with accuracy, precision, and flexibility.
    • A LIDAR instrument principally consists of a laser, a scanner, and a specialized GPS receiver.
    • Airplanes and helicopters are the most commonly used platforms for acquiring LIDAR data over broad areas.

  • What is ‘Direct Seeding of Rice’ (DSR)?

    Farmers are now being encouraged to adopt ‘direct seeding of rice’ (DSR) in place of conventional transplanting due to lack of labourers, who are stranded due to lockdown.

    Recall the classification of cropping seasons on India based on onset and retreat of Monsoon.

    The kharif crops include rice, maize, sorghum, pearl millet/bajra, finger millet/ragi (cereals), arhar (pulses), soyabean, groundnut (oilseeds), cotton etc. The rabi crops include wheat, barley, oats (cereals), chickpea/gram (pulses), linseed, mustard (oilseeds) etc.  Kindly make a note of this.

    What is ‘Direct Seeding of Rice’ (DSR)?

    • In transplanting, farmers prepare nurseries where the paddy seeds are first sown and raised into young plants.
    • These seedlings are then uprooted and replanted 25-35 days later in the main field.
    • Paddy seedlings are transplanted on fields that are “puddled” or tilled in standing water using tractor-drawn disc harrows.
    • In DSR, there is no nursery preparation or transplantation. The seeds are instead directly drilled into the field by a tractor-powered machine.

    How is the question of herbicides addressed in DSR?

    • Paddy being very much water-intensive is compromised by weeds that compete for nutrition, sunlight and water.
    • Water prevents the growth of weeds by denying them oxygen in the submerged stage, whereas the soft ‘aerenchyma tissues’ in paddy plants allow air to penetrate through their roots.
    • Water, thus, acts as a herbicide for paddy. The threat from weeds recedes once tillering is over; so does the need to flood the fields.
    • In DSR, water is replaced by real chemical herbicides. Farmers have to only level their land and give one pre-sowing irrigation or rauni.
    • Once the field has good soil moisture, they need to do two rounds of ploughing and planking (smoothening of soil surface), which is followed by the sowing of the seeds and spraying of herbicides.

    What are these herbicides?

    • There are two kinds. The first is called pre-emergent, i.e. applied before germination. In this case, the pre-emergent herbicide used is Pendimethalin.
    • The second set of herbicides is post-emergent, sprayed 20-25 days after sowing, depending upon the type of weeds appearing.
    • They include Bispyribac-sodium (Rs 600-700 at 100 ml/acre) and Fenoxaprop-p-ethyl (Rs 700-800 at 400 ml/acre).

    What is the main advantage of DSR?

    • The most obvious one is water savings. The first irrigation (apart from the pre-sowing rauni) under DSR is necessary only 21 days after sowing.
    • This is unlike in transplanted paddy, where watering has to be done practically daily to ensure submerged/flooded conditions in the first three weeks.
    • The second savings, relevant in the present context, is that of labour. About three labourers are required to transplant one acre of paddy at almost Rs 2,400 per acre.
    • As against this, the cost of herbicides under DSR will not exceed Rs 2,000 per acre.

    Limitations of DSR

    • The main issue is the availability of herbicides.
    • The seed requirement for DSR is also higher, at 8-10 kg/acre, compared to 4-5 kg in transplanting.
    • Further, laser land levelling, which costs Rs 1,000/acre, is compulsory in DSR. This is not so in transplanting.
    • The yields are as good as from normal transplanting, but one need to sow by the first fortnight of June. The plants have to come out properly before the monsoon rains arrive.
    • There is no such problem in transplanting, where the saplings have already been raised in the nursery.

  • What is African Swine Fever (ASF)?

    • Amid the coronavirus pandemic, another disease outbreak is affecting thousands of animals in Assam.
    • Since February, over 2,900 pigs have died in the state due to African Swine Fever (ASF), which does not affect humans but can be catastrophic for pigs.
    • This is the first time that an ASF outbreak has been reported in India.

    As Flu is nowadays a lot in news, keep a tab on them for prelims. Be it the Swine Flue, African Swine Fever or even H5N1.

    African Swine Fever (ASF)

    • ASF is a severe viral disease that affects wild and domestic pigs typically resulting in an acute hemorrhagic fever.
    • The disease has a case fatality rate (CFR) of about 100 per cent.
    • Its routes of transmission include direct contact with an infected or wild pig (alive or dead), indirect contact through ingestion of contaminated material such as food waste, feed or garbage or through biological vectors such as ticks.
    • The disease is characterized by the sudden deaths of pigs.
    • Other manifestations of the disease include high fever, depression, anorexia, loss of appetite, hemorrhages in the skin, vomiting and diarrhoea among others.

    How did the current outbreak start?

    • As per the latest update issued by FAO, the current outbreak of ASF has affected China, Mongolia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Republic of Korea and Indonesia among others.
    • In China, the first ASF outbreak was confirmed in August 2018 and since then more than 1 million pigs have been culled in the country.
    • ASF came into India through Tibet into Arunachal Pradesh and then into Assam, the state with the highest population of pigs in the country.

    How is ASF different from swine flu?

    • Swine influenza or swine flu is a respiratory disease of pigs, which is caused by type A influenza virus that regularly causes outbreaks of influenza in pig populations.
    • While the swine flu causing virus leads to a high number of infections in pig herds, the disease is not as fatal and causes few deaths. Specific swine influenza vaccines are available for pigs.
    • The swine flu viruses are spread among pigs through close contact and through contaminated objects moving between infected and uninfected pigs.
    • Symptoms include fever, depression, coughing, discharge from the nose and eyes, eye redness or inflammation.

    Vaccines availability

    • As of now, there is no approved vaccine, which is also a reason why animals are culled to prevent the spread of infection.
    • It is important that determination of ASF is made through laboratory testing and it is differentiated from Classical Swine Fever (CSF), whose signs may be similar to ASF, but is caused by a different virus for which a vaccine exists.
    • Even so, while ASF is lethal, it is less infectious than other animal diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease.

    What is the impact ASF will have on pig farmers?

    • Pig farmers in Assam describe the outbreak as a “double whammy” since the COVID-19 lockdown was already impacting sales negatively.
    • The outbreak has ruined the prospect of the Northeastern states as a hub for the export of pork products.

  • [pib] Energy-efficient Photodetector for Security Application

    Indian scientists have fabricated an economical and energy-efficient wafer-scale photodetector using gold – silicon interface, for security applications.

    A basic question on the working principle of Photodetectors can be asked in the Prelims.

    What are Photodetectors?

    • Photodetectors, also called photosensors, are sensors of light or other electromagnetic radiation.
    • A photodetector has a p–n (positive-negative) junction that converts light photons into the current.
    • The absorbed photons make electron-hole pairs in the depletion region.
    • Photodiodes and phototransistors are a few examples of photodetectors. Solar cells convert some of the light energy absorbed into electrical energy.
    • The material cost and the intricate fabrication processes involved in realizing high-performance detectors make them unaffordable for day to day applications.

    Applications

    • Photodetectors are the heart of any optoelectronic circuit that can detect light.
    • They are employed for a wide variety of applications ranging from controlling automatic lighting in supermarkets to detecting radiation from the outer galaxy as well as security-related applications.
    • They range from simple devices that automatically open supermarket doors, to receivers on the TV remote controls.

    What did Indian researchers achieve?

    • The scientists have fabricated gold (Au) – silicon (Si) interface, which showed high sensitivity towards light demonstrating the photodetection action.
    • The Au–Si interface was brought about by galvanic deposition, a technique for electroplating of metals, wherein water-based solutions (electrolytes) are used, which contain the metals to be deposited as ions.
    • In addition, a nanostructured Au film also was deposited on top of p-type silicide (having an excess of positive charges), which acts as a charge collector.

    Benefits

    • Being a solution-based technique, the method is highly economical and enabled large-area fabrication without compromising the detector response.
    • The process is quick, taking only minutes to fabricate a detector of any arbitrary area and exhibited a rapid response of 40 microseconds.
    • This photodetector displayed long-term environmental stability.
    • The Indian invention provides a simple and cost-effective solution-based fabrication method for high-performance photodetector.
    • It could help detect weak scattered light as an indication of unwanted activity.

  • [pib] UV Blaster: A UV Disinfection Tower

    The DRDO has developed an Ultra Violet (UV) Disinfection Tower for rapid and chemical-free disinfection of high infection-prone areas.

    GYAN:

    We have a UV filter in our home based water filter.  Ever wondered, how do UV rays kill viruses/bacteria?

    UV Blaster

    • The UV blaster is a UV based area sanitizer designed and developed by Laser Science & Technology Centre (LASTEC), the Delhi based premier laboratory of DRDO.
    • It is useful for high tech surfaces like electronic equipment, computers and other gadgets in laboratories and offices that are not suitable for disinfection with chemical methods.
    • The product is also effective for areas with a large flow of people such as airports, shopping malls, metros, hotels, factories, offices, etc.

    How does it work?

    • The UV based area sanitizer may be used by remote operation through laptop/mobile phone using wifi link.
    • The equipment has six lamps each with 43 watts of UV-C power at 254 nm wavelength for 360-degree illumination.
    • For a room of about 12 x 12 feet dimension, the disinfection time is about 10 minutes and 30 minutes for 400 square feet area by positioning the equipment at different places within the room.
    • This sanitizer switches off on the accidental opening of a room or human intervention.

    Back2Basics: UV germicidal irradiation

    • UV irradiation is a disinfection method that uses short-wavelength ultraviolet rays to kill or inactivate microorganisms by destroying nucleic acids and disrupting their DNA, leaving them unable to perform vital cellular functions.
    • UVGI is used in a variety of applications, such as food, air, and water purification.
    • UVGI devices can produce strong enough UVC light in circulating air or water systems to make them inhospitable environments to microorganisms such as bacteria, viruses, moulds, and other pathogens.
    • UVGI can be coupled with a filtration system to sanitize air and water.
    • It has been used primarily in medical sanitation and sterile work facilities.
    • Increasingly, it has been employed to sterilize drinking and wastewater since the holding facilities are enclosed and can be circulated to ensure a higher exposure to the UV.

  • What is Geo-fencing?

    The Centre is using powers under the Indian Telegraph Act to “fetch information” from telecom companies every 15 minutes to track COVID-19 cases across the country.

    What is Geo-fencing?

    • A geofence is a virtual perimeter for a real-world geographic area.
    • A geo-fence could be dynamically generated—as in a radius around a point location, or a geo-fence can be a predefined set of boundaries (such as school zones or neighbourhood boundaries).
    • The use of a geofence is called geofencing, and one example of usage involves a location-aware device of a location-based service (LBS) user entering or exiting a geo-fence.
    • This activity could trigger an alert to the device’s user as well as messaging to the geo-fence operator.

    Tracking COVID-19 patients

    • The government has tested an application that triggers e-mails and SMS alerts to an authorised government agency if a person has jumped quarantine or escaped from isolation, based on the person’s mobile phone’s cell tower location.
    • This “geo-fencing” is accurate by up to 300 m.

  • A different fight-back

    Context

    Coronavirus crisis is an opportunity for India to build on domestic technological capabilities in artificial intelligence, big data analytics, life sciences and health technology in the private sector.

    How a small tech company flagged Covid-19 outbreak?

    • What does it do? A small tech company in Canada — BlueDot — was among first outside China to spot a new epidemic spreading out from Wuhan last December.
      • BlueDot, founded in Canada by a medical scientist of South Asian origin, Kamran Khan, tracks the origin and transmission of infectious diseases around the world.
    • How could they detect the outbreak in China?  BlueDot did this by sifting through massive volumes of news reports and blogs by individuals, including health professionals flowing out of China.
      • Data analytics and medical expertise combined: BlueDot combines “public health and medical expertise with advanced data analytics to build solutions that track, contextualise, and anticipate infectious disease risks”.
      • Use of AI: BlueDot is one of the many technology firms leveraging artificial intelligence for business and policy purposes.
      • Many governments are reaching out to tech companies to cope with the corona crisis.
      • The state government of California has just hired BlueDot to help it deal with the challenge.

    The growing role of technology in dealing with coronavirus

    • Across the world, policymakers see a growing role for technology in identification, tracking, and treating the coronavirus.
    • Alibaba and Tencent’s help in China: In China, the Communist Party roped in big tech companies like Alibaba and Tencent in the battle against the virus.
    • Silicon valley’s help in the US: In the US, President Donald Trump has set aside his well-known distaste for Democrat-leaning Silicon Valley to tackle what he now calls a war-like emergency.
    • India will need all the science and technology it can get hold of in overcoming the crisis that is bound to escalate by the day.
    • An opportunity to do good: For the small tech startups in related areas, this is a moment to shine. For the large tech companies, this is a huge opportunity to deploy their immense capabilities to resolve the specific problems posed by the spread of the coronavirus.
      • In rising to the occasion, they could fend off a lot of the recent negative criticism of their business practices and demonstrate that their commitment to “doing good” is not just empty rhetoric.
    • A good business proposition: “Doing good” is also a sensible business proposition at this time.
      • As governments desperately seek solutions to the crisis, the tech startups and established companies leverage the moment to scale up many technologies, develop new uses and markets.

    How countries used technology to deal with the outbreak

    • How China used technology? In China, as the government moved decisively after the delayed initial response, it turned to-
      • the well-established mass surveillance system based on facial recognition technologies,
      • sensing technologies to identify those with fever in public places and
      • data from mobile phone companies to trace the people who might be infected, and limit the spread of the disease.
    • China also developed a Health Code that uses data analytics to-
      • identify and assess the risk of every individual in a targeted zone based on travel history and time spent in infected places.
      • The individuals are assigned a colour code (red, yellow, or green) which they can access via popular apps to know if they ought to be quarantined or allowed in public.
    • How Korea used technology? Many Asian democracies like South Korea have also turned to AI tools to contain the spread of the disease.
    • How the US used technology? As it copes with the rapid spread of the coronavirus, the US had no option but to use surveillance to contain it.
      • Partners in dealing with outbreak: Unsurprisingly, the big tech companies in the US, based on collecting and monetising massive amounts of data from individuals, have inevitably become partners for Washington.
      • But the relationship between the government, corporations and individual citizens in the US is governed by a welter of laws.
      • There is mounting pressure now to tweak these laws to manage the corona crisis.
      • The US is also liberalising the regulations on the access to, and use of, patients’ health records.

    Growing collaboration between science and the state

    • The race between China and the US: Overarching these arguments is a race between the US and China to find new vaccines for the coronavirus.
      • And, more broadly, for the mastery of new scientific capabilities — from artificial intelligence to health technologies.
      • The competition, in turn, is promoting a more intensive alliance between science and the state in both nations.
    • Collaboration could accelerate the technological capabilities: The collaboration between science and the state during past crises led to a dramatic acceleration of technological capabilities.
      • World War precedents: During the Second World War, science and the state got together to move nuclear physics from the lab to the battlefield.
      • Cold War precedent: The Cold War between America and Russia promoted the development of space technology, microelectronics, communications and computing.
    • Role of private entities: What marks out the current technological race between the US and China is the role of private and non-governmental entities.
      • That might well be the missing link in India’s effort to beat the coronavirus.

    Conclusion

    • Opportunity for India: The current crisis, however, is also an opportunity for India to build on the existing domestic technological capabilities in the areas of artificial intelligence, big data analytics, life sciences, health technology in the private sector.
    • India needs stronger private sector in science: In India, the state has dominated the development of science and its organisation. That was of great value in the early decades after Independence.
      • Today, what Delhi needs is a stronger private sector in science and greater synergy with it in dealing with challenges like the corona crisis.

  • PCR Test for Diagnosis of the COVID-19

     

    The diagnosis of COVID-19 can be done with the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Test which is explained as under:

    The PCR Test

    • It uses a technique that creates copies of a segment of DNA. ‘Polymerase’ refers to the enzymes that make the copies of DNA.
    • Kary Mullis, the American biochemist who invented the PCR technique, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1993.
    • The ‘chain reaction’ is how the DNA fragments are copied, exponentially — one is copied into two, the two are copied into four, and so on.
    • However, SARS-COV-2 is a virus made of RNA, which needs to be converted into DNA. For this, the technique includes a process called reverse transcription.
    • A ‘reverse transcriptase’ enzyme converts the RNA into DNA. Copies of the DNA are then made and amplified.
    • A fluorescent DNA binding dye called the “probe” shows the presence of the virus. The test also distinguishes SARS-COV-2 from other viruses.

    Various Stages:

    1) Collection and transport

    • Testing centre takes swabs from nasal cavities and back of the throat (pharynx), and puts samples in a “virus transport medium”, which contains balanced salts and albumin to prevent the virus from disintegrating.
    • Sample is then transported in cold storage to the testing lab.

    2) Extraction of viral RNA

    • Coronaviruses have large single-stranded RNA genomes.
    • Testing lab extracts the RNA from the samples, using commercially available kits.

    3) Putting THE RNA in THE PCR mix

    • Extracted RNA is added to a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) mix.
    • This includes the ‘master mix’, which contains a ‘reverse transcriptase’ enzyme that converts the RNA into DNA.
    • Master Mix contains Taq polymerase, the enzyme that creates copies of the DNA, nucleotides, as well as other elements such as magnesium — an ion of which is needed to amplify the DNA.
    • The PCR mix also contains ‘reagents’ such as ‘primers’ and ‘probes’.
    • Primers are particular strands of DNA that are designed to bind with the DNA that is to be copied; probes are used to detect the specific sequence in the DNA sample.
    • Finally, the PCR mix consists of a “housekeeping” gene — a normal human gene (RNAse P) that is used to ensure that samples were properly collected, and RNA extracted.

    4) Amplification of the viral DNA

    • Sample, in its PCR mix, is put into tubes or plates, which are then put in a thermal cycler machine that is used to conduct the PCR process.
    • First, the RNA is converted into DNA. Then the process of copying the genes starts.
    • The thermal cycler heats and cools the mixture with the sample, alternating between three temperatures — for melting the DNA to separate the two strands.
    • The thermal cycler runs 30-40 such cycles in order to amplify the DNA to check for the virus.

    5) Testing against controls

    • Amplified DNA is tested against a positive control, which usually consists of genes of the virus cloned into plasmid, and a negative control, which is a ‘known’ sample that has tested negative for the virus earlier.
    • RNase P should show amplification, positive control should be positive, negative control should be negative, and then whatever result you get for the specimen, is the correct result.
    • In order for a test to be valid before the result is released, certain ‘validity criteria’ have to be met.
    • If the housekeeping gene (RNase P) is positive, positive control is positive, negative control is negative, and the sample does not show any PCR positive result, the sample is declared negative.
    • If the PCR result is positive, the patient has COVID-19.