The Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences (MBRU), Dubai Health Authority (DHA) and Breathonix Pte Ltd are currently carrying out a joint clinical trial to assess the accuracy of a new Covid-19 breath test.
The test opens up the possibility of detecting the virus within 60 seconds.
The trials are being conducted at the DHA’s Nadd Al Hamar primary health care centre for 2,500 patients.
Breathonix, a spin-off company of the National University of Singapore (NUS), developed the test.
The patient would blow into a disposable mouthpiece connected to a high-precision breath sampler. The exhaled breath would be collected into a sampler and fed into a mass spectrometer for measurement. A machine learning software would analyze the volatile organic compound (VOC) profile and generate the result in less than a minute.
