COVID-19: Singapore develops robot for swab tests

Singapore has developed a robot that carries out nasal swabbing to diagse COVID-19, in a bid to reduce healthcare workers' risk of exposure to dely Coronavirus.

Clinicians from National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS) and Singapore General Hospital (SGH) have partnered with Biobot Surgical, a firm specialising in medical robotics techlogy, to develop SwabBot, Channel News Asia reported.

self-ministered robot, that automates taking of COVID-19 swab tests, will help reduce healthcare workers' risk of exposure to coronavirus, it said. robot helps dress limitations of manual COVID-19 swab tests by reducing need for trained manpower, standardising consistency of swabs taken and "providing greater throughput" of swab tests as robot does t suffer from fatigue, three groups said in a statement.

SwabBot is a “self-ministered” robot, meaning patients can activate and terminate process at will. When a patient is rey, y can use ir chin to activate robot and start swabbing process. robot n extends swab through se to back of nasal cavity, which is typically about 10cm from strils.

“Even after many swabs, it retains same gentle touch and precision as surgeons who perform very delicate procedures,” said Dr Luke Tay, a consultant with Department of Vascular Surgery at SGH.

Furrmore, sample quality remains consistent even though se structures can vary in size and shapes,said Dr Tay.Meanwhile, Singapore recorded 31 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, including nine imported infections, taking country’s caselo to 57,607, Ministry of Health said in its daily preliminary report.

All imported cases h been placed on stay-home tice (SHN) upon ir arrival in Singapore, it said, ding that rest of cases were migrant workers living in dormitories while re was case from community.

four imported cases, reported on Sunday, came from Philippines, Iran and Germany between September 8-15. y have been put under a 14-day SHN. Sunday’s sole case from community, a foreigner on work permit, was detected during rostered routine testing of workers in construction, marine and process sectors who are staying outside dormitories, and was picked up even though he was asymptomatic.

With 39 patients discharged from hospital on Sunday, 57,181 have fully recovered from infection, said health ministry.Currently, 30 patients are in hospital and 338 at community facilities.