Phone Screen Testing (PoST) is a low-cost and non-invasive method and might be a game-changer for low-income countries.
To control the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the key strategies is testing. While improvements in technology now allow people to order testing kits online through eCommerce platforms, there is a new technology that can significantly improve detection of the virus using samples taken from smartphone screens.
Phone Screen Testing (PoST) is a low-cost and non-invasive method and might be a game-changer for low-income countries.
Researchers from University College London (UCL) collected samples from mobile screens using this method and found that people who tested positive for COVID-19 using the regular nasal swab RT-PCR test were also positive when samples were taken from their mobile screens.
The findings were published in the journal eLife, suggesting that 81.3-100% of individuals with high-viral load SARS-CoV-2 nasopharyngeal positive samples also tested positive for PoST. The research suggests that this method is effective in identifying COVID-19 infections.
The researchers said that constant surveillance would be required to limit the spread of the virus, adding that PoST could help to contain Covid-19 outbreaks and identification of variants of concern in the years to come.
What is PoST?
PoST is a non-invasive environmental test that is cheaper than the nasal swab RT-PCT test. Instead of collecting samples from the throat or nasal passageway, samples are collected from mobile screens using swabs. After collection, they are embedded into a saline water solution and then tested in the same way as traditional swabs to test for the presence of the virus.
The researchers were led by Dr Rodrigo Young of University College London, and the study was performed on 540 individuals who were subjected to both PoST and PCR testing.
"We successfully identified variations associated with SARS-CoV-2 Alpha, Beta and Gamma variants in positive PoST samples," researchers said in the paper.
"PoST is a new non-invasive, cost-effective, and easy to implement smartphone-based smart alternative for SARS-CoV-2 testing," they concluded.
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