Sinha instant infection breathalyzer

To arrest the spread of airborne pandemics like Covid-19, pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic infected persons need to be quickly detected and isolated. Sinhatech’s portable breathalyzer can do this simultaneously with a forehead temperature scan and indicate within 1-2 seconds if a test subject carries respiratory infection. The breathalyzer uses proprietary optical and flow control technology to instantaneously detect increase in numbers of sub-micron aerosolized micro droplets in the exhaled breath of an infected person. Health workers on the ground as well as volunteers can use the device at public gatherings. The device, in conjunction with a smart phone, automatically acquires and transmits infection status along with location. This enables actionable real time monitoring of a pandemic across all regions of the globe without having to wait for laboratory test results. If scaled globally, the device can effectively eliminate overwhelming medical resources everywhere and avoid disruptive large scale lock downs.

Our breathalyzer will enable last-mile primary healthcare providers to detect respiratory infectious disease outbreaks quickly and respond to them in real time to limit the spread. Most of the 7.9 billion people on earth are not in close proximity to health care centers but play a key role in spread of pandemics such as Covid-19 which can affect the entire planet. Standard methods of testing for respiratory infections require significant discomfort in collecting bodily fluids. Laboratory tests of these fluids take too long for real time monitoring. On the other hand, quick monitoring of forehead temperature can miss pre-symptomatic infected individuals. By relying on detecting an increase in number of aerosol droplets exhaled by an infected individual our breathalyzer provides an effective first screen. Any respiratory infection will be detected on the spot making decisions to isolate more effective and less disruptive for a community. 

•A novel method for immediate screening of Covid-19 infection based on recently documented evidence [1] that exhaled breath of infected individuals have a higher concentration of small (under 5μm) aerosol droplets [1 ] Edwards, et al., “Exhaled aerosol increases with COVID-19 infection, and risk factors of disease symptom severity”, medRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.30.20199828.

•The method uses a combination of patented flow control [2] to concentrate aerosols into vortices and electrostatic forcing to deposit the segregated aerosol particles. [2] Sinha, S.K., U.S. Patent No. 7,422,051]

•The number particles deposited per unit area is determined through optical interrogation within a few seconds. This number is a direct identifier for possible Covid-19 infection.

•Sinhatech is working on embodying this method in a portable breathalyzer device for screening individuals in a few seconds.

•Instantaneous non-intrusive screening of Covid-19 infected individuals enabled by our innovation will be key towards controlling airborne virus spreading in crowded and/or confined ventilation challenged environments where social distancing is difficult. Doctors offices: initial user/validator

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•Forehead temperature measurement is the only Instantaneous screening for Covid-19 available now. Competing existing and upcoming breathalyzer screening requires at least 10 minutes.

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•We see a need in instantaneous pre-board screening of 2.3 million (2019 data) US airline passengers. Covid-19 has reduced the number to 0.837 million  in 2020. [Urgency: Covid infection induced death on United Airlines as per Reuter, Dec 18, 2020]

Disruptions and suffering due to the ongoing spread of Covid-19 mutations in poor neighborhoods and slums in India and other underdeveloped regions of the world will be especially benefitted. In India, for example, the rapid hard handed compulsory wide spread lockdown initially carried out by the government led to daily subsistence wage earners going hungry. Our breathalyzer will enable quickly isolating a limited number of infected individuals. The remaining uninfected individuals can continue with activities essential towards maintaining their livelihood without contributing towards the spread of the disease. We have started discussions with non-government organizations currently providing assistance in cooperation with local healthcare personnel to the poor slums near Kolkata, India. Over 50% of the world's 7.9 billion individuals fall within this category.

Our goal is to provide a breathalyzer for every 100 individuals. or 79 million units to monitor the total population of earth against current and future fast spreading respiratory infections. This will enable all residents of this planet to remain safe against suffering, death and disruption of livelihood caused by a respiratory infection like SARS Cov-2 originating anywhere. This aligns with the Challenge goal of strengthening disease surveillance to detect, slow, or halt future disease outbreaks.

We have verified our concept for detecting changes in exhaled aerosol droplets and are currently completing a prototype suitable for acquiring test data. We have set up collaborations with doctor's offices to gather real life patient data in order to ascertain technical feasibility of using our breathalyzer as an early respiratory infection detection tool. Prior to completion of this our stage of development remains a concept.

Detection of respiratory infections, such as Covid-19 is difficult in infected pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals, who can still spread the infection. Standard molecular identification of nasal swabs and saliva require at least 10 minutes and may not identify a new virus correctly. Rapid forehead temperature scans cannot identify pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic disease spreaders. Our solution is novel since 

1. it utilizes empirical evidence that exhaled breath of infected individuals has a higher concentration of small (under 5μm) aerosol droplets 

2. it uses a combination of patented flow control to concentrate the exhaled aerosols along with an inexpensive but sensitive proprietary optical detection technique to determine changes in concentration of aerosols having diameters less than the wavelength of visible light within 1-2 seconds. 

3. enables real time monitoring and isolation of otherwise undetectable infection spreaders for currently known and yet to be determined pandemic infections.

Currently under development. Projected to impact about 1000 patients in offices of our doctor partners in a year. If scale up proceeds as planned we can be serving over 100 million individuals in five years.

Currently three employees, one full time and two part time

One contractor

Dr. Sumon Sinha, the team leader and founder of Sinhatech is an inventor with background in aerodynamics, fluid mechanics and mechanical engineering. We have a Ph.D. economist/data analyst with experience in providing on-line education to rural and underserved communities in India on our team. We also have an aerospace engineer/consultant with hands on experience in instrumentation development and rapid prototyping. We are also collaborating with medical doctors in evaluating our proposed breathalyzer.

We have a female and an African American on our small team.