With the Wuhan virus spreading rapidly, many doctors and scientists have scrambled to develop a cure for it.
Biotechnology companies are also trying their best to develop test kits so that the public can use these kits to test if they have the virus without having to go to the hospital and risk getting an actual infection there.
By now, you should have known that 14 days, also known as the incubation period, is the longest time period required for one to develop symptoms of the highly contagious virus.
Previously, Singaporean biotech company Veredus Laboratories announced that they were in the midst of developing a test kit that would be able to detect the coronavirus within two hours. And they have just released it yesterday.
But Veredus Laboratories isn’t the only company trying to make a test kit though.
NUS Developing Test Kit Too
According to 8world, scientists from the National University of Singapore (NUS) are also developing a test kit that is said to be able to detect the coronavirus within 30 minutes.
It is believed that this test kit would also help to increase the chances of diagnosis during the incubation period, with an accuracy of as high as 99.8%.
According to Assistant Professor Shao Huilin from the NUS Institute for Health Innovation and Technology, traditional detections generally require large equipment to study and detect the sequence of viruses and DNA sequences through temperature changes. Now, with new technology, fewer samples are used on small sensors to detect the viruses.
The Bad News
The NUS team is working hard on developing the test kit, but estimate that it will still take them several months to develop before it can become available. And by the time they finish developing it, it is possible that the Wuhan virus (hopefully) would have already been contained.
Nevertheless, it is still amazing that the researchers are doing whatever they can to put out a test kit that can detect the virus in a mere 30 minutes so that not everyone has to go to the hospital and wait long hours for a confirmation of whether they test positive or negative.
So let’s pray that they are able to develop it as soon as possible, and that this epidemic will end soon.
