Rapid Diagnostic Tests or RDTs are used in developing countries to test patients for various diseases. A small sample of blood or other fluids is placed on a RDT strip, which changes colors if an infection is present. The test has been administered to detect, HIV, malaria, tuberculous, and other diseases.
Manual reading and analysis of RDTs by healthcare professionals however can be error prone. Simply due to the volume of strips being analyzed or other human errors. For this reason, researchers at UCLA have invented a digital RDT reader. The strips can plug into the reader which is then plugged to a mobile phone. An app on the phone (both iPhone & Android) can "read" the data on the strip with its camera, and make the correct diagnosis.
"The diagnosis is then transmitted wirelessly to a global database which employs GoogleMaps to plot the instances of disease.
Together, the universal RDT reader and the mapping feature, which
have been implemented on both iPhones and Android-based smart-phones,
could significantly increase our ability to track emerging epidemics
worldwide and aid in epidemic preparedness, the researchers say.
"This platform would be quite useful for global health professionals,
as well as for policymakers, to understand cause-effect relationships
at a much larger scale for combating infectious diseases," Ozcan said."
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