A unit of Japan's Fujifilm Holdings Corp. said Tuesday it can develop detection kits for new variants of COVID-19 in about a month, responding to concerns over the spread of more infectious strains of the virus that causes the condition.
Fujifilm Wako Pure Chemical Corp. developed a kit that can identify the L452R variant, first identified in India and California and recently found in Tokyo. That adds to kits that can detect two other strains of the virus, which are used by public health authorities as early warning systems for infection trends.
"It's very important to control the mutant strains in the early stages of their spread," said Kuniaki Okamoto, general manager of the company's life sciences operations, in an interview.