A handheld, easy-to-use breathalyzer device capable of accurately detecting COVID-19 at the point of care would represent a major breakthrough in the effort to contain the spread of the virus. That vision may now be closer to reality thanks to a new international collaboration established to perform a massive clinical trial to test the idea. Here is a briefing on the deal and its potential significance: The Diagnostic Challenge All agree that rapid and accurate point-of-care testing performed on a mass basis, including both the symptomatic and asymptomatic, is crucial to containing the spread of coronavirus. However, only a few of the COVID-19 diagnostic tests that have hit the market since the pandemic began have received regulatory approval for testing people who are asymptomatic. Focusing on the symptomatic is completely understandable. After all, people displaying symptoms of illness should be the priority when testing resources are in scarce supply. By the same token, as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports, the coronavirus is mostly spread by persons who do not have symptoms. Accordingly, what is need is a method of providing mass testing to asymptomatic people without diverting resources that are desperately needed for testing the […]