2020-08-07
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Recently, an Iranian startup has succeeded in developing a real-time COVID-19 detector that screens the cases with high accuracy in an instant, which has great potential for use in screening people in crowded places.
With the coronavirus traveling all around the world, these days we all are worried about going out to public places such as airports, retail stores, restaurants, etc.; especially, finding out that those thermometers used at the entrance of every public setting to identify the suspected COVID-19 cases are actually of no use, makes us even more overwhelmed! But the good news is that Dr. Abdolahad’s research group from the University of Tehran has recently designed a ROS/H2O2 electrochemical sensor successfully tested for the early COVID-19 detection.
The sensor has been manufactured by an Iranian startup and obtained a temporary sale license from the National Medical Device Directorate of Iran Food and Drug Administration (IFDA). The production line is being prepared to introduce the sensor into global markets.
This product has been tested on around 600 cases, and then the sensor calibration pattern was obtained compared to the results collected from standard clinical tests such as CT Scan, CBC, and RT-PCR. The most paramount advantage of this sensor is the real-time detection of COVID-19 in less than 30 seconds, providing medical centers and public settings with real-time COVID-19 screening instead of using thermometers to identify the suspected cases.
This sensor detects the coronavirus based on the amount of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in sputum. The concentration of ROS in the sputum of COVID-19 cases changes, which is used to detect the presence of the virus, even if the cases are still asymptomatic.
The product works based on the same technology developed and patented for the real-time detection of breast cancer by NanoHesgarsazan Salamat Arya (Patent Pub. No: US, 2018/0299401 A1, Pub. Date: Oct. 18, 2018).