Smartphone Detects Parasites in Blood

Now smartphones can be used to take a blood sample and then you can detect wriggling parasites in your blood.

The medical science has always been improving. Now we are living in a time where we can use our phone to check our blood sample for parasites. The new product called the CellScope system films a drop of blood.

There is an app which automatically analyses any movement in the sample so that parasites could be detected. The results of the system were published on Science Translational Medicine. The results showed us that the device was successful after some trials were done in Cameroon.

Experts also said that this achievement has market a fundamental advance in tropical diseases. Previously the treatment for two parasites known as river blindness and elephantiasis was suspended. These were suspended because the treatment for the parasites became fatal to some people.

A team in the University of California, Berkeley and the US National Institute of Health used a modified smartphone to automate all of this process. A blood sample was collected and it was loaded into the handheld box.

The smartphone was on top of the handheld box. With just the touching of the screen, the device moved the sample and it started capturing video. It also started to analyze the images. The phone is not looking for the shape of the worms but it is looking for any movement of the parasites.

The software in one case detected the Loa loa parasites. It also told the number of detected parasites and told the healthcare worker whether the patient was suitable for drug treatment. So we can clearly see that very less training is required when you will be using this device because most of the work would be done by the device.

The current screening procedures required people to be skilled in analyzing blood sample by the help of their eyes. Early trials in Cameroon were successful and now they will be tested on 40,000 people in the near future for parasite analysis.