New bird-flu test 10 times faster than current tests

By DPA

Singapore : A palm-sized bird-flu detector developed in Singapore is 10 times faster than current available tests even in the most remote locations, scientists said Monday.


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The miniature laboratory is capable of telling if a person or animal has contracted the H5N1 form of the virus in less than 30 minutes.

“The answers you will get are: Am I infected? If yes, how severe is it?” The Straits Times quoted Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology research scientist Juergen Piper as saying.

What sets the device apart from others commercially available is that it is a self-contained lab on a chip, he said.

It is 40 to 100 times cheaper because each sample droplet is so minuscule that the cost for reagents plunges, the researchers said.

The device detects the virus at the earliest stages of the disease, when a victim is yet to show any symptoms.

It can be used by medical or aid workers to detect the virus directly from throat swab samples. Chicken dropping samples can also be tested.

The device “can be easily taken to the field, where it will be able to detect the virus the moment a person is infected, rather than having to wait for 10 days or so for symptoms to appear,” scientist Lisa Ng told the newspaper.

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