Combating Coronavirus: Breakthrough technology for mass testing to be rolled out in UAE

An Abu Dhabi-based company has developed a breakthrough technology in mass screening for Covid-19 that can be a game-changer in the UAE's fight against coronavirus.

Group 42, an artificial intelligence and cloud computing company, has partnered with the UK's Oxford Nanopore Technologies to develop population-wide testing that can rapidly and accurately detect coronavirus.

The testing method, which is expected to be ready within weeks, can be done on collected swab samples. The company is also aiming to make the technology work directly from saliva. Moreover, it can also be used to analyse environmental samples to assess the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus on surfaces, or in systems such as water and sewage treatment facilities.

"The collaboration with Oxford Nanopore, a global leader in advanced sequencing products, accelerates G42's ongoing endeavour to develop impactful applications for public health. This breakthrough solution is a result of the tireless effort by our joint teams under the extraordinary pressure of Covid-19," said Peng Xiao, chief executive of G42.

"The worst of the pandemic has brought out the best in us. We believe this capability will not only enable large-scale screening of SARS-CoV-2, but also fundamentally shift the paradigm on health diagnostics in general," he added.

The new technology is now being incorporated into the UAE's national testing strategy that is conducting mass testing as an effective way to combat the spread of coronavirus. The UAE has one of the highest testing rates in the world with over 2.5 million tests conducted.

G42 and Nanopore are expecting to ramp up their testing capacity to hundreds of thousands of samples daily, and to make it available for the global fight against the pandemic.

Population-wide testing can help break the transmission patterns of the virus, reducing the number of cases when used in conjunction with a rapid public health response. However, existing methods make such large-scale processing logistically difficult and cost-prohibitive. The end-to-end solution, developed by G42 and Oxford Nanopore, can dramatically reduce the complexity of mass screening.

Dr Gordon Sanghera, CEO of Oxford Nanopore, noted: "Precise and cost-efficient population-scale testing is key to a responsible easing of restrictions, to protect the health of populations and supporting the re-opening of global economic activity."

Rapid insights, scalability and non-PCR dependence, all make a high-throughput screening capacity built on LamPORE technology the right tool for governments and organisations to implement mass-scale testing. We are confident that our partnership with G42 will allow us to successfully deploy this new technology around the world."

The UAE is testing an average of 213,636 people in a million, with the daily testing average equalling the four-month average in other countries. The UAE is way ahead of even developed countries.

Abdul Rahman Bin Mohammed Al Owais, Minister of Health and Prevention, said at a meeting earlier last month: "The UAE acted proactively and transparently in the early days of the outbreak. Notably, it was the first country in the Middle East to report a confirmed case, one of the first countries to begin coronavirus testing and early detection, and among the few countries that are still performing strict testing."