Developing a smartphone app for flu and COVID detection

Medical Xpress January 28, 2022
University of California - Santa Barbara

In a potential game changer for COVID-19 pandemic control efforts, a new cell phone app and lab kit have transformed a smartphone into a COVID-19 / flu detection system. The detection system is among the most rapid, sensitive, affordable and scalable tests known—and can be readily adapted for other pathogens with pandemic potential including deadly variants of COVID and flu. It also provides a platform for inexpensive home-based testing.

Developed by a research team of UC Santa Barbara scientists and colleagues, the smartphone study was published in the journal JAMA Network Open. The system succeeded in achieving rapid and accurate diagnosis of COVID-19, COVID variants, and flu viruses. The app uses a smartphone’s camera to measure a chemical reaction and...

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