Could a smartphone app be used to detect COVID-19?

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2022-01-29 03:00

International

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A smartphone-based test could be the answer to fast, cheap, and sensitive testing for diseases such as COVID-19 and influenza according to international researchers. The team has developed a test known as smaRT-LAMP which uses a small device that connects to a smartphone to analyse human saliva samples and detect infections. The team tested their device on samples from 50 community-based patients, finding that it could detect COVID-19 infection and showed consistency with PCR tests. The team suggest that their test could be most helpful in populations lacking adequate vaccination levels, and is easily adaptable to rapidly changing COVID variants.

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Journal/
conference: JAMA Network Open

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University of California, USA

Funder: This research was funded by National Institutes of Health (NIH) HL131474 (Drs Fried and M. Mahan), Cottage Health Research Institute (Drs Low and M. Mahan), and U.S. Army Research Office via the Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies cooperative agreementW911NF-19-2-0026 (Dr M. Mahan) and contract W911NF-19-D-0001-0013 (Drs Low and M. Mahan).

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