Rollout of eye-scan test for coronavirus targeted by
German firm
Send a link to a friend
[April 13, 2021]
MUNICH (Reuters) - A Munich-based company
hopes to help usher in a new era of coronavirus testing with an eye scan
that, it says, takes just three minutes to identify carriers of the
disease and has a hit rate of 95%.
|
|
 Semic RF has developed its scanning app with colleagues in the
United States and, pending regulatory approval, hopes to start
rolling it out there by the end of next month, says its managing
director, Wolfgang Gruber.
It uses a photo of the eye taken with a smartphone, and identifies
the virus by means of a symptomatic inflammation called "pink eye".
"We managed to isolate COVID-19 from over two million different
shades of pink," Gruber told Reuters.
He says the app, already tested on over 70,000 individuals, can
process up to a million scans per second and the option to expand
that capacity further - potentially allowing crowds back into
mass-attendance events like concerts and football matches.
[to top of second column] |
 "You take your app, take a
picture of both eyes, send it for evaluation,
and then you can have the evaluated result
stored as a QR code on the tested person's
smartphone," Gruber added.
The app is initially being targeted at companies
and commercial users, at a cost of 480 euros
($570) per month, with a later rollout to
private individuals planned.
($1 = 0.8409 euros)
(Reporting by Claudia Doerries; writing by
Bartosz Dabrowski in Gdansk; editing by John
Stonestreet and Ed Osmond)
[© 2021 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2021 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content |
