Concert venues, international airports and even restaurants are increasingly asking patrons for a recent negative COVID-19 test before entering their premises. Some organizations offer to test people on the spot as they enter.
But current COVID-19 testing options aren’t convenient enough for the kind of mass daily screening that some businesses would like to implement. Rapid antigen tests take about 15 minutes and are in short supply. Molecular test results—the gold standard—often take days to become available. Both typically require twirling a swab up the nose—not exactly something people like to do as they head for a cocktail.
This has led many scientists to develop super-rapid testing methods using breath samples. Such devices are less socially awkward and can deliver results in under a minute—fast enough to feasibly screen large crowds as they pass through hubs.
Here, IEEE Spectrum has selected five different approaches to analyzing breath for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Some of these technologies can sense the virus directly. Others pick up indirect indicators, such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs). These molecules are present in healthy breath, but change in ratio when a person is infected with the virus.
The technologies come from companies working in a wide range of applications that pivoted to COVID-19 when the pandemic hit. Steradian Technologies in the United States, for example, was building a product for human supersight, and managed to turn its optics technology into a diagnostic.
No COVID-19 breathalyzer is widely available yet, but we might soon see them popping up in select settings globally. In May, Singapore provisionally approved a breath-based device from Breathonix and may use it to test travelers at a Singapore-Malaysia checkpoint, according to the company. A device from similarly named Breathomix, in the Netherlands, was recently used by a port company in Rotterdam to check about 3,500 employees daily.
After more clinical validation, COVID-19 breath-based tests might finally give the world a more convenient and comfortable testing option.