New Covid-19 Response Device Detects Airborne Virus
Date posted:
News
Coltraco Ultrasonics has launched a new product which can detect the spread of airborne diseases, Lifescience Industry News reports. The Portascanner® COVID-19 device allows the user to locate and quantify leaks in ICU wards as small as 0.5mm in diameter.
The aim is to reduce the spread of Covid-19 in hospitals by making the essential process of maintaining negative-pressurisation on wards much quicker and easier.
The product was designed as a result of a UK Government COVID-19 Emergency Response Grant, which was funded by UK Research and Innovation. The funding was aimed at quickly developing new projects to address and mitigate the health, social and economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.
The current practice on hospital wards is to measure total air permeability, but this is not able to give accurate volumes or locate them precisely. The Portascanner® COVID-19 device measures individual leak sizes and leakage rates, and uses the data to approximate the total air permeability for the entire ward.
The air permeability value allows the ICU ward to achieve negative-pressurisation, which is crucial to controlling airborne contagion. A survey from December 2020 showed that 56% of air samples taken from hospital corridors contained high levels of coronavirus.
Methods previously used to achieve negative-pressurisation were time consuming, disruptive, and costly, as patients had to be moved out, and tests carried out by third party contractors. Medics also had no way of identifying the location of the leaks, and had to rely on ineffective guesswork such as taping up doorframes and windows.
The new Portascanner® COVID-19 device can be used with minimal training. The lightweight hand-held product is simple to operate, allowing users to record, photograph, and export data. Hospital staff will be able to keep the buildings and patients safer, as well as having more time to dedicate to caring.
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