The Israel Institute of Technology said on March 18 that researchers at the school have developed a new method for detecting coronavirus that could significantly increase the number of people tested each day.
Researchers call this detection method the "combined detection method", which can detect samples from dozens of people at the same time.
Currently, Israel uses the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method to detect new coronaviruses, which can only detect virus-specific nucleic acid sequences in one subject's sample at a time.
Constrained by limited testing capabilities, current Israeli tests for new coronaviruses are primarily targeted at those who have developed symptoms.
The researchers said that the new method can perform a combined test on 32 or 64 "joint samples" of subjects at a time, which can significantly increase the number of people tested.
The system can identify individual positive samples in the "joint sample". Only in rare cases, such as when the "joint sample" is positive overall, each sample needs to be tested separately, which will greatly improve the detection efficiency.
The researchers said that the new method will help increase the number of people tested each day in order to identify those who have not yet presented with new symptoms of coronary lung inflammation and reduce the incidence of subsequent infections.
The research method was jointly developed by the Israel Institute of Technology and the Hyderabad Hospital with the support of the Israeli Ministry of Health.
At present, the daily detection capacity of Israel's new coronavirus is limited to 2,000 times. Netanyahu said on the 18th that it has requested to increase the daily detection capacity of new coronavirus to 10,000 times.
Special Report: Fighting The New Coronavirus
