German Bosch develops fully automated rapid test for COVID-19

Photo: MTI/Vasvári Tamás

Bosch has developed one of the “world’s first fully automated” rapid test to combat the coronavirus pandemic, the German engineering and technology company announced on Thursday.

“Bosch’s rapid COVID-19 test will help contain the spread of the pandemic and break the chain of transmission more quickly,” Bosch CEO Volkmar Denner said.

The new rapid test would provide reliable test results in no more than 2.5 hours and could diagnose 10 respiratory pathogens simultaneously for differential diagnosis, according to Bosch. The test would be available in Germany starting in April, “with other markets in Europe and elsewhere to follow.”

A further advantage of the rapid test would be that it could be carried out directly at the site of clinical treatment, eliminating time-consuming transport routes, Bosch explained. Patients would “quickly gain certainty” about their state of health.

“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 Bosch CEO Denner.

The new Bosch rapid test was intending to help medical facilities such as doctors’ offices, hospitals, laboratories and healthcare centers make a rapid diagnosis and would be used on the Vivalytic platform by Bosch Healthcare Solutions.

According to Bosch, the universal platform for molecular laboratory diagnostics could test various samples and use fully-automated analytical methods in a very short time.

“We are currently investigating how to additionally ramp up the production for the Vivalytics platform,” a Bosch spokesperson told Xinhua on Thursday.

In laboratory tests with the coronavirus, the new rapid test would have provided results with an accuracy of over 95 percent, according to Bosch. Tests would meet the quality standards of the World Health Organization (WHO).