Bosch develops rapid test to combat coronavirus infections

German engineering and technology company Bosch has said its rapid test can detect a SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus infection in patients within two-and-a-half hours.

Developed in just six weeks, the test for COVID-19 can help medical facilities make fast diagnoses and play a part in containing the coronavirus pandemic.

Another advantage of the rapid test is that it can be performed directly at the point of care. This eliminates the need to transport samples, which takes up valuable time.

It also means patients quickly gain certainty about their state of health while allowing infected individuals to be identified and isolated immediately. With the tests currently in use, patients usually wait for one to two days for a result.

"We want the Bosch rapid COVID-19 test to play a part in containing the coronavirus pandemic as quickly as possible. It will speed up the identification and isolation of infected patients," said Volkmar Denner, Chairman of the Board of Management at Robert Bosch GmbH.

"Time is of the essence in the fight against coronavirus. Reliable, rapid diagnosis directly on-site with no back and forth -- that is the great advantage of our solution," he said on the company's website.

The rapid molecular diagnostic test runs on the vivalytic analysis device from Bosch Healthcare Solutions. A Bosch vivalytic analyser can perform up to ten tests in the space of 24 hours. This means it takes just 100 devices to evaluate up to 1,000 tests per day.

Marc Meier, President of Bosch Healthcare Solutions GmbH, said the newly-developed test will be available in Germany starting in April with other markets in Europe and elsewhere to follow.

Bosch's rapid COVID-19 test is the result of the collaboration between the company's Bosch Healthcare Solutions subsidiary and the Northern Irish medical technology company Randox Laboratories Ltd.

In various laboratory tests with SARS-CoV-2, the Bosch test delivered results with an accuracy of over 95 per cent. The rapid test meets the quality standards of the World Health Organisation (WHO).

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