SINGAPORE – An easy-to-use breath test that can detect the coronavirus within a minute has received provisional authorisation from Singapore’s Health Sciences Authority.
The BreFence Go Covid-19 Breath Test System is developed by Breathonix Pte Ltd, a National University of Singapore (NUS) spin-off firm.
Breathonix was founded by NUS graduates Dr Jia Zhunan, Du Fang and Wayne Wee Shi Jie, along with Dr Jia’s PhD adviser, Prof T. Venky Venkatesan. It is supported by the NUS Graduate Research Innovation Programme (GRIP).
“The pandemic is likely to go on for several years. Mass, repeated testing has to be widely adopted as a key public health strategy to support the safe reopening of economies, and Breathonix’s home-grown technology hits the right spot,” said GRIP deputy president (innovation and enterprise) Prof Freddy Boey in a statement yesterday.
“I’m confident that their novel technology will make a significant contribution towards protecting the safety and health of Singaporeans and the global community.”
Breathonix is working with the Health Ministry to run a deployment trial at a land checkpoint.
The breath analysis will be conducted alongside the current compulsory antigen rapid test.
The BreFence system works by detecting volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in a person’s exhaled breath.
VOCs are produced by biochemical reactions in human cells. As the VOC signature of a healthy person’s breath varies from that of a sick individual, the changes can be measured as markers for diseases like Covid-19.
The breath test does not need to be administered by medically trained staff, or undergo laboratory processing.
A person just needs to blow into a disposable, one-way valve mouthpiece connected to a high-precision sampler. The exhaled breath is collected and fed into a mass spectrometer for measurement. A proprietary software algorithm then analyses the VOC biomarkers, and generates a result in less than a minute.
A person who yields a positive result from this screening will need to undergo a confirmatory PCR swab test.
The breath analysis system underwent clinical trials conducted in three locations from June last year to last month.
In Singapore, the trials were carried out at the National Centre for Infectious Diseases and Changi airport, while the third trial was carried out in Dubai, in collaboration with the Dubai Health Authority and Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences. – Bernama, May 25, 2021
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