Over two years have passed since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. As waves of increasing numbers of infected people strain the capacities of medical facilities, technology that can test for viruses in a short time and with high accuracy is required.
To meet such needs, in February 2022, Hitachi Social Information Services partnered with Hamamatsu University School of Medicine and other organizations to develop a new antigen test method. By combining regular commercially available antigen test kits and a desktop scanning electron microscope, the new method achieves detection accuracy as high as PCR test levels in the short time of about 30 minutes. In the future, this technology is also expected to find broad application in the testing of other infectious diseases in addition to COVID-19.