Rapid BV test; helping create performant medical workflows
A rapid BV test is a quick test that can tell a healthcare professional if a patient has a bacterial or viral infection through using the protein responses of the autoimmune system to essentially conduct the diagnosis for you. Some of the proteins used in such tests have been studied extensively for other applications since the mid-90’s. Interestingly even today the autoimmune system continues to provide more information regarding how the body works and what we can do to assist its recovery. A whole host of protein micro systems work together to signal changes in the body in response to different pathogens and ingress paths.
What the test involves
A blood test viral vs bacterial infection works through an ELISA process. Reagents are prepared by the manufacture of a rapid BV test and concentration of solutions known. Each rapid BV test uses three protein markers that join to an autoimmune protein marker in a blood sample and when excited by a certain UV wavelength will illumines. As each molecule produces a certain wavelength of light with each marker having different characteristic wavelengths, a camera can be used to capture this backscatter and artificial intelligence used to quickly count each response. Once counted a calculation based on the concentration of the reagents used with the sample counting then provides the relative quantity of the autoimmune proteins. Depending on the ratios of the three proteins the software has the ability to tell if patient is suffering from a viral or bacterial infection.
The benefits
One of the major benefits of rapid BV tests is that the analysis is carried out on blood which can help with identifying concealed or hidden pathogens in remote parts of the body. Other BV tests also take much longer or the results not as detailed as a rapid BV test. Results from testing can be ready between 10 to 15 minutes after taking the sample from the patient, which means that a patient can be tested in before being diagnosed by the healthcare professional. This saves the patient and the medical facility from multiple visits; drastically reducing waiting lists.
Many countries that have healthcare that pays for the medication used through national contributions never know the costs of medications or inflated prices associated with keeping shareholders happy. The reality for other countries is far more serious and if a person is charged for a prescription that is wrong and needs another then not only are they not getting better, they are getting poorer. By giving the correct medication the bill of the treatment is smaller with either the medical facility, patient or insurance company being far happier. As such there has been an active drive by insurers to get rapid BV tests and other means that reduce mistreatment into medical facilities.
These novel tests are conducted with lightweight, low footprint equipment and disposable cartridges, meaning no more mixing of reagents holding up test results, waste of radioactive isotopes with a short half-life or specialists needed to run the tests. So long as the person running a test is rated to take a blood sample then this test can be run by anyone. Testing can be carried out in field hospitals with multiple units and cartridges stacked easily on a pallet and taken by air freight straight to a disaster zone. You can put the equipment on storage racks in small buildings and run hundreds of tests at a time with little impact on operational capacity. A rapid BV test has already been used during the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for these devices will likely sore in the near future as we enter the pandemic age.
