Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long (fourth from left) receives the token of the COVID-19 breath testing system from Vingroup (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) – Minister of HealthNguyen Thanh Long on June 4 received a COVID-19 breath testing system costing over 460billion VND (20 million USD) donated by domestic conglomerate Vingroup.
The system comprises 30 testing machines anddisposable mouthpieces capable of collecting 2 million samples.
The BreFence™ Go COVID-19 breath testing system quickly produces results in an accurate andnon-invasive manner. The test has received provisional authorisation fromSingapore’s Health Sciences Authority (HSA).
It operates by detecting volatile organiccompounds (VOCs) in a person’s exhaled breath that are produced by biochemicalreactions in human cells.
A person need only blow into a disposable one-wayvalve mouthpiece connected to a high-precision breath sampler. The exhaledbreath is collected and fed into a cutting-edge mass spectrometer for measurement.
A proprietary software algorithm analyses the VOCsbiomarkers and generates results in less than a minute, with an accuracy rateof 90 percent.
At the handover ceremony, Long highly appreciatedVingroup’s assistance to the health sector’s fight against the COVID-19pandemic over the past year as well as in public health care in general.
Vingroup has to date contributed close to2.29 trillion VND (some 99.45 million USD) to the country’s COVID-19 fight.
Of particular note, it presented 4 million dosesof vaccine costing nearly 500 billion VND to the MoH, and provided 20 billionVND for clinical trials of the homegrown candidate vaccine COVIVAC, which isbeing developed by the ministry’s Institute of Vaccines and Medical Biologicals(IVAC).
The group also donated medical supplies worth30 billion VND to help Bac Giang and Bac Ninh provinces cope with spreadingCOVID-19 outbreaks./.
