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To curb the spread of the coronavirus it is necessary, for example, at airports or at large gatherings, to screen out anybody with infection. How can that be accomplished in less time and more efficiency? The routine tests take time, and ‘vaccine passports’ may not be hundred percent effective. If there were breathalyzers for Covid-19, it would make the task easier. A Dutch company has developed a device that detects Covid infection from your breath, and it has already been put in use, for example, at the Eurovision Song Contest in Rotterdam this May.
Watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTr0mvjX5Go
A water-bottle-sized device, ‘SpiroNose’ made by the Dutch company Breathomix, analyzes the chemical compounds in the subject person’s breath to detect signs of a coronavirus infection. [https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/05/forget-throat-swabs-dutch-company-claims-its-breathalyzer-can-help-sniff-out-covid-19] Similar devices are under development in many countries. Singapore has granted provisional permission to two ‘breathalyzers’. [https://www.hsa.gov.sg/announcements/regulatory-updates/hsa-expedites-approval-of-covid-19-diagnostic-tests-in-singapore-via-provisional-authorisation]
Researchers at the Ohio State University have sought the US FDA’s permission for their own version. [https://news.osu.edu/ohio-state-researchers-testing-breathalyzer-to-detect-covid-19/]
Various diseases affect the breath, and diagnosing them through breath analysis has been a topic of deep research for long. The exhaled breath is composed of hundreds of gases, called volatile organic compounds (VOCs), resulting from hundreds of physiological processes inside the body. A disease affects some of those processes, leaving its mark on the breath. But the diagnostic use of exhaled breath has faced many challenges. There are many extraneous factors that affect the breath, from diet to smoking. However, new sensor technology coupled with machine learning has fuelled advances in this area. Scientists have progressed to identify the VOCs and chemical patterns associated with lung cancer, liver disease, tuberculosis, asthma and other diseases.
As for Covid-19, the next frontier of research is to detect not the ‘breathprints’ of the virus but virus itself, through censors. [https://medicine.wustl.edu/news/washington-university-researchers-to-design-detectors-of-airborne-sars-cov-2/] If ‘Covid breathalyzers’ deliver good results, the field can open up to detect other diseases too. That will be a big boost in combating future epidemics.
Also see:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/11/health/covid-breathing-test.html
https://www.fiercebiotech.com/medtech/breathonix-s-covid-19-breathalyzer-test-receives-provisional-authorization-singapore