Current situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, India has witnessed a massive surge of cases. As of April 30, 2021, around 400000 new cases and 3000-4000 deaths per day were reported from 32 states/union territories in India. In this national emergency health system is struggling and made every attempt for early and accurate diagnosis followed by isolation, treatment, and supportive care of COVID infected patients, to curtail the situation. Since the early days of the upsurge, researchers are working on the need for such assays. Currently, two major categories of diagnostic assays are available for diagnosing COVID-19. The first one is an immunoassay that identifies antigenic proteins or antibodies produced against these antigens, which is rapid but with low specificity and low sensitivity. The second option is sophisticated and complex molecular assays including RTPCR, microarray, next-generation sequencing (NGS), and crisper-based techniques that are confirmatory & highly sensitive, but their turnaround time is long and they require skilled and trained personals. Loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) is a molecular technique with all the benefits of molecular assay like accuracy & sensitivity, simultaneously it is rapid, reliable, costeffective, and could be used at point-of-care testing.This review discusses the procedure, clinical applications, advantages, and limitations of RT-LAMP in the context of immunoassay and RT-PCR technique. The review also focuses on recent advances and developments in LAMP-based techniques, its limitation, and challenges.

Key words: Loop Mediated Isothermal Amplification, Rapid Molecular diagnosis, Immunoassays, RTPCR, COVID- 19.