The US licensed the first COVID-19 test kit by breathing

InspectIR breath test kit for COVID-19 – Photo: INSPECTIR/CNN

According to the newspaper New York Times, the InspectIR test kit must be operated by a trained healthcare professional. This test kit gives results in less than 3 minutes and can be used in clinics, hospitals and mobile testing sites.

The test kit is about the size of a piece of hand luggage and can analyze about 160 samples per day.

InspectIR uses technology that can separate and identify chemicals related to the SARS-CoV-2 virus in the breath. If a positive result is received, the tester should perform further PCR testing, according to the FDA.

The test kit was tested in a study that involved 2,409 symptomatic and asymptomatic COVID-19 patients. In the study, the test kit correctly identified 91% of positive samples and 99% of negative samples.

According to NBC, by far the PCR test is considered to have the most accurate results. However, there are also rapid tests, some of which you can do at home, for highly accurate results.

The US is currently experiencing an outbreak caused by the BA.2 subline of the Omicron variant. This sub-lineage accounts for about 86% of cases in the US, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

While the number of hospital admissions in the US is still at the lowest level compared to previous outbreaks, the average number of new cases per day has increased by 9% in the past two weeks. Many experts believe that the scale of the spread of the virus is much larger than the recorded numbers.