Health Ministry receives COVID-19 breath testing system from Vingroup

Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long on June 4 received a COVID-19 breath testing system costing over VND460 billion  (US$20 million ) donated by domestic conglomerate Vingroup.

Health Ministry receives COVID-19 breath testing system from Vingroup ảnh 1 Minister of Health Nguyen Thanh Long receives the token of the COVID-19 breath testing system from Vingroup (Photo: SGGP)
The system comprises 30 testing machines and disposable mouthpieces capable of collecting 2 million samples.
The BreFence™ Go COVID-19 breath testing system quickly produces results in an accurate and non-invasive manner. The test has received provisional authorisation from Singapore’s Health Sciences Authority (HSA).
It operates by detecting volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in a person’s exhaled breath that are produced by biochemical reactions in human cells.
A person need only blow into a disposable one-way valve mouthpiece connected to a high-precision breath sampler. The exhaled breath is collected and fed into a cutting-edge mass spectrometer for measurement.
A proprietary software algorithm analyses the VOCs biomarkers and generates results in less than a minute, with an accuracy rate of 90 percent.
At the handover ceremony, Long highly appreciated Vingroup’s assistance to the health sector’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic over the past year as well as in public health care in general.
Vingroup has to date contributed close to VND2.29 trillion (some US$99.45 million) to the country’s COVID-19 fight.
Of particular note, it presented 4 million doses of vaccine costing nearly VND500 billion to the MoH, and provided VND20 billion for clinical trials of the homegrown candidate vaccine COVIVAC, which is being developed by the ministry’s Institute of Vaccines and Medical Biologicals (IVAC).
The group also donated medical supplies worth VND30 billion to help Bac Giang and Bac Ninh provinces cope with spreading COVID-19 outbreaks.

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