Port-au-Prince.– Puerto Rican company Caribbean Biotechnologies Inc. was granted approval by Haiti’s Ministry of Health to conduct clinical studies to test its new technology for the instantaneous detection of Tuberculosis in patients, EFE reports.
According to the report, CBT has developed a device that enables the instant detection of airborne transmitted diseases such as TB. "It uses a revolutionary and patented technique of optical detection, a large improvement from current technologies where the identification requires longer waiting periods," said CBT president Jorge E. Gonzalez quoted by EFE.
The system developed by CBT is capable of detecting and identifying bacteria and fungi spores in open environments or in patients with air-borne transmitted infectious diseases such as TB. It also has the potential to detect and identify viruses.
The study will be conducted in partnership with International Child Care’s Grace Children’s Hospital starting in the fall 2015 in patients presenting TB symptoms. Haiti has one of the highest rates of Tuberculosis in the American continent. The study is a major step in the global approval of the technology, the report said.