NEW DELHI (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th August, 2020) The testing of four Israeli rapid coronavirus diagnostic tools in India is expected to be completed in a matter of weeks and pave the way for tests that can detect COVID-19 in less than a minute, Deputy Chief of Israeli Mission to India Rony Yedidia-Clein told Sputnik in an interview.
Earlier this month, Israel brought its four pilot diagnostic tools to test them in India due to its own population being too small to ensure a sufficient number of virus-positive test subjects. India is currently the world's third most affected country, with more than 2.2 million cases and over 44,000 deaths.
"Until we find the vaccine it is just as important to find rapid testing methods and we are working on that and we hope it will be a matter of weeks until we have the new tests that can quickly find COVID-19," Yedidia-Clein said. "We brought equipment and we brought scientists. Israeli scientists are working together with Indian scientists in order to test the new innovation [of] four different kinds."
The four tools include, as elaborated by the diplomat, a test that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze a person's voice waves in order to detect changes in the respiratory system, an AI-equipped test that uses terahertz waves to analyze the breath, an isothermal test to detect the virus in heated saliva and a polyamic acids test to detect the virus protein in saliva.
Yedidia-Clein said the technologies were tested together by Israel's Defence Research and Development Directorate and the Defence Research and Development Organisation in India.
When asked whether the two countries are also cooperating to make a vaccine, the diplomat said: "No, there are teams working in both in Israel and in India and I am sure they share information between them because scientists all over the world are sharing information. But there is no official cooperation for the vaccine. Right now the cooperation between the two countries is on the testing front."
According to Yedidia-Clein, the tests in the works will have the capacity to detect the coronavirus within a minute or less.
