A Munich-based company hopes to help open a new era of Covid testing by eye scanning – a procedure that, the company says, takes only three minutes and has an efficiency rate of 95%. The company has developed its scanning app working with colleagues in the United States and hopes to launch it by the end of next month if it receives permission to use it, says CEO Wolfgang Gruber.
The test uses a photo of the eye taken with a smartphone and identifies the virus by a symptomatic inflammation called “pink eye”.
“We managed to isolate the Covid-19 signs from over two million different shades of pink,” Gruber said.
He says the app, already tested on 70,000 people, can process up to one million scans per second and has the option to expand capacity – allowing people to return to mass events such as concerts and football matches.
“You take your application, take a photo of both eyes, send it for evaluation and receive the result, which is stored as a QR code on the smartphone of the person tested,” Gruber added.
The application is initially addressed to companies and commercial users, at a cost of 480 euros ($ 570) per month, with a subsequent launch planned for private individuals.