ABOVE: Canary's breath sensor
CANARY HEALTH TECHNOLOGIES
In Hillbrow, a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa, researchers are gearing up to start a trial to assess a rapid breath test for COVID-19 to deliver results on-site in less than five minutes. If successful, the test would offer the advantages of being non-invasive, easy to use, and appropriate in settings other than hospitals.
“We believe that breath is potentially a powerful medium in detecting certain diseases early,” says Mohammed Majam, the head of medical technologies at Ezintsha, an academic policy and research unit of the health sciences faculty at University of the Witwatersrand (Wits).
“We are evaluating if this is the same for a virus like COVID. Our body responds immediately to the virus metabolically, and in the process, unique gases are produced. These gases are a signature of the virus and a breath test would be able to capture that,” Majam, who ...
