ROORKEE: In collaboration with the Roorkee Municipal Corporation, a team of researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, has developed a portable COVID-19 screening booth for sample collection of the corona suspects.
“IIT Roorkee’s telephone booth style screening platform will eliminate the need for expensive PPE kits currently used by medical staff for screening COVID-19 suspects,” said professor Soumitra Satapathi, lead researcher of the project.
The booth can house medical personnel and is completely vacuum-sealed.
It enables healthcare personnel to collect the swab samples of the patient through long gloves and thereby eliminates the chances of any potential human contact.
The whole sample collection procedure can be completed in just five minutes. The booth will be sanitized after each sample collection, Satapathi said.
The project has been financed by the Roorkee Municipal Corporation.
"The team of IIT Roorkee behind this innovation comprises research scholars Prathul Nath, Naveen Kumar Tailor, Tejasvini Sharma and Anshu Kumar from Laboratory for Integrated Nanophotonics and Biomaterials (LINB) in the Physics Department. I congratulate them all for their hard work and contribution in these trying times," Satapathi said.
Earlier in April, the IIT, in an endeavour to augment government efforts for surveillance of COVID-19 suspects, had developed a unique tracking mobile application.