You can read the article at this site: Article Press Release, Imperial College London
A new breakthrough for virology and infectious diseases management - a usb device that could detect HIV virus in the blood.
I personally think that this would be really beneficial in the long run, given how it would be easier and faster for people to get tested and treated. As mentioned in the article, it can help HIV patients better manage their treatment programs by measuring measuring the viral load in their body.
All these in just 30 minutes.
Present HIV RNA tests could take up to a week and is indeed very costly. I personally pay close to $200 every three months for my viral load tests. This could help save time and money indeed.
Hopefully this technology can also be applied to other viruses. This could help with containing outbreaks and for better disease management.
Sources
[1] Picture & Article:
Imperial College London, Nov 10 2016 - "HIV test performed on USB stick"
[2] Scientific Report:
R. Gurrala, Z. Lang, L. Shepherd, D. Davidson, E. Harrison, M. McClure, S. Kaye, C. Toumazou & G. S. Cooke
Novel pH sensing semiconductor for point-of-care detection of HIV-1 viremia
Scientific Reports 6, Article number: 36000 (2016) doi:10.1038/srep36000
Published: 10 November 2016