A human life carries a lot of themes throughout its duration. If we talk about the construction of these themes, they are largely made from different elements, but at the same time, we also have a few that are somewhat common. One such common element is our universal tendency of simplifying things. Out of all the gifts human beings have been bestowed with, our adeptness around turning complex concepts into something more comprehensible certainly sticks out as arguably the most important skill in our arsenal. This skill alone consistently ensures that the trajectory of our evolution remains unhindered, which as you can guess, leads directly to a smarter generation. Now, even though the said process had worked just fine for a long time, we could feel that somewhere it demanded a breath of fresh air. Hence, we set off on a journey to hammer out a more refined alternative to it, and when we returned, we returned with technology. There are many reasons why technology ended up successful across the board. However, you can also boil all of them down to one i.e. the creation mirrored human ambition like nothing else. Right from the get-go, it promised to change the world, and that’s exactly what it did. Furthermore, by keeping convenience at the heart of everything, technology was able to appease the masses much quicker than anyone expected, except that didn’t stop it from continuing to reinvent the wheel. Time and again, it has come back with a bigger testament of its brilliance, and the creation’s latest bid to do so appears within the healthcare sector.
The researching team at Ohio State University has come up with a unique take on detecting Covid 19 by effectively developing a breath test. According to the shared details, the test is powered by an idea of breath print, which is formed through the amalgamation of oxygen, nitric oxide, and ammonia found in the breath. So far, medical professionals have entrusted traditional PCR test for Covid 19 diagnosis due to its sheer accuracy, but the invasive nature of such a test significantly reduces its feasibility under certain environments. As a result of it, we are now witnessing a rather big-scale emergence of rapid testing. While this methodology wastes no time in delivering the verdict, it does make some sacrifices on the accuracy frontier. The Ohio State University’s brainchild tries to solve that issue with an inventive take.
If we are to put some stock in the early trials, the breath test is believed to have impressed the room by posting an accuracy rate of 88%. Apart from that, the technique is also showing signs of being effective in picking up the disease while it’s still at an early stage.
“PCR tests often miss early COVID-19 infections and results can be positive after the infection has resolved. However, this noninvasive breath test technology can pick up early COVID-19 infection within 72 hours of the onset of respiratory failure, allowing us to rapidly screen patients in a single step and exclude those without COVID-19 on mechanical ventilation,” said Dr. Mathew Exline, a researcher involved in the study.