Medical researchers and mobile engineers are working to make a smartphone that can carry out effective AIDS tests in rural areas, which are often worst hit by the illness. A joint team from South Africa and South Korea has developed a smartphone app and microscope that can analyze blood samples in remote areas, far from full-fledged laboratories. The idea behind this solution is relatively straightforward, the smartphone is used to obtain and analyze images to detect signs of immunity disorder.
Doctors and nurses can clip a device called Smartscope to the smartphone’s camera. A 1mm microscope checks the blood sample and a special app analyze cells. Researchers hope that early trials can start in clinics next year. A different smartphone-based prototype is also developed in the United States, but it requires a remote computer to analyze the sample, necessitating a steady Internet connection. Smartscope is more versatile as it can determine CD4 cell count without additional tools.