A team of researchers from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur has developed a low-cost diagnostic device to perform various pathological tests by using blood taken from a finger prick, reports Hindustan Times.

According to an IIT Kharagpur statement on Tuesday (13 August), the device requires only a paper strip based kit integrated with a smartphone to enable analytics and readout functions and an LED light for imaging.

The statement added that the key aspect of the kit, developed by a research team led by Professor Suman Chakraborty, is that it is simple to operate and has extremely low running cost.

The cost of each test by the kit under laboratory conditions is under Re 1 or even less while in case of the commercialisation of the product, the cost is likely to marginally vary.

The device requires a single drop of blood an a drop of reagent (a substance used to cause a chemical reaction) on the paper-based reaction chamber.

“Compared to other reported portable devices for haemoglobin estimation, this device is implementable without any trained personnel at resource-limited settings,” Chakraborty said.

According to the report, extensive validation tests have been conducted for blood glucose and haemoglobin at laboratories as well as in the field.

“We have tested it at extreme challenging environment with uncontrolled dirt, dust and humidity, and in the absence of structured clinics or air-conditioned pathological laboratories to work,” Dr Satadal Saha, visiting professor at the School of Medical Science and Technology of IIT Kharagpur, said.