Coronavirus Could Soon Be Detected Using a Smartphone

The COVID-19 virus has taken over the world and caused a global lockdown. The hardest function virtually Coronavirus is that it is difficult to detect as it doesn't evidence any symptom in patients until 2 weeks from them being infected, and patients tin however spread the virus among people they come up in contact with. All the same, researchers are working on a device that could presently get in possible to detect a COVID-19 patient using a smartphone.

It is existence reported that COVID-19 detection could soon become quite easy. Equally piece of cake as coughing or sneezing into a smartphone. A US-based research team is said to be developing a new sensor that could be attached to a smartphone and tell if a user is infected with COVID-19 within 60 seconds.

The sensor could potentially cost equally depression every bit £45, and it will be available within three months. Professor Massood Tabib-Azar, an engineer at the University of Utah in the Us, is the Project Leader for the development of the upcoming sensor. He said that the project was started twelve months ago and was originally designed to notice the deadly Zika virus, but has been modified to detect Coronavirus.

The prototype sensor is just one-inch-broad and communicates with a smartphone via Bluetooth or the charging port. If someone blows, coughs, or sneezes into the sensor, it would exist able to notify via an app if they are infected with the COVID-nineteen virus. If the virus is nowadays, DNA strands in the sensor are bound to its protein, and it triggers an electrical resistance, signaling a positive effect.

Professor Massood Tabib-Azar said that the sensor could brandish a colour to indicate the presence of COVID-xix so that the issue can be viewed with a naked center. He also said that the sensor is reusable every bit it destroys the previous saliva sample using a small charge of electric current. He said that such a sensor could be placed in everyone'southward hand if it is manufactured at scale.

The squad said that they are also working on a way to send the results to authorized health agencies. This will make it easier for governments around the earth to accurately indicated COVID-19 hotspots, which can so exist used to more effectively incorporate the virus from spreading further. The app is expected to be ready for a four-week clinical trial by the terminate of July 2022.

Our Take

If this sensor turns out to be a success in its clinical trial, all the countries around the earth would be interested in it. This solution to discover the infection is much easier and not-invasive than the current method that involves collecting a sample of saliva or mucous from the back of the nose.

Once this sensor and the companion app is tied with the COVID-19 contact tracing APIs from Apple and Google, and link it to authorized health agencies around the world, information technology could become much easier to contain and defeat COVID-19.

[Source: Metro]