Rapid breathalyzer can potentially relieve pressure on corona test streets |...

The pressure on test streets could soon be relieved by a lightning-fast breath test by the Leiden company Breathomix. In recent weeks, the device has been running on an Amsterdam test street and the first results are positive, the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) confirms to NU.nl after reporting from de Volkskrant.

The breathalyzer took part in a test street in the Amsterdam RAI as part of an investigation by the GGD Amsterdam, the Franciscus Gasthuis & Vlietland and the LUMC. The Ministry of Health (VWS) has already ordered several hundred devices, which will initially be used in the test streets of the GGD.

In Amsterdam 1,800 took the breathalyzer test after they had taken the regular corona test with a cotton swab. Of all people who had themselves tested, the device could definitely rule out a corona infection in three quarters of the cases.

This device, which can rule out contamination in a matter of seconds, could greatly ease the pressure on test streets. The part where an infection cannot be ruled out could then undergo a regular corona test.

Device learns to recognize patterns in breath

The so-called ‘SpiroNose’ has been used in the past to recognize lung diseases such as asthma and COPD. It works by detecting particles in the air that humans exhale in addition to CO2 and water vapor. That air is different in sick people as in healthy people.

“The device does not only look at one specific particle, but at a combination. It actually works just like a human nose, which recognizes a combination of particles as the smell of coffee,” says De Vries.

By building a large database of various sick and healthy people, the device eventually learned to recognize corona, says COO of Breathomix Janne de Vries in conversation with NU.nl. De Vries expects the device to become increasingly accurate as more people take the breath test and the algorithms can compare more data.