Electronic screening for illness using a rapid VOC Measuring system

There is a need for a rapid screening test for Covid-19 and other diseases which is rapid; very low cost; non-invasive; can be applied by unskilled operators and which does not involve the use of any consumables such as swabs or chemical reagents. Roboscientific has previously developed instruments for the early detection of diseases in animals such as poultry, dairy cattle, pigs through the use of electronic instruments containing proprietary high sensitivity sensors which measure the Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) given off in breath or other body odours. The "digital fingerprint" of the VOCs is compared to reference "fingerprints" taken from subjects infected with particular diseases. This technology has proven very successful in commercial trials, detecting chicken diseases several days sooner than traditional PCR testing. If this system works with animals it should work with humans. Attempts by others using breath samples, for example cancer diagnostics, have not been wholly successful because of variability of the invasive sampling technique and high moisture content. Roboscientific has potentially overcome the problems by adopting a far simpler, predictable and novel technique for the test. Every health worker; care worker; shop worker, etc. wears a face mask during work. The fabric of the mask adsorbs breath and spit residues containing VOCs. The mask is subsequently put into a small flask attached to a handheld VOC analyser. The flask is electrically heated and the released VOCs are sucked into the analyser and measured for comparison with reference "disease" fingerprints stored in memory. The whole process takes less than a minute.