A Quebec research team has just received the green light from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to test a device that will shorten the response time for detecting covid-19.
“In a matter of minutes, the device could indicate whether the sample contains coronavirus antibodies, an operation that currently takes several hours,” says Jean-François Masson, PhD, chemistry professor at the University of Montreal.

The scientists have good reason to believe that their prototype will be successful: they previously worked on a prototype capable of detecting allergic reactions to a leukemia drug, with positive results.

But they caution that it would be wrong to assume that that the device for covid-19 will be deployable during the current offensive against the pandemic.

“I believe that in the best-case scenario, we will have a reliable device within a year, for the next wave of the epidemic, if necessary,” says Masson.

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