Health Verifier

[rancke]

I just had an idea for a new medical tool. It's game purpose is to explain why PCs can just arrive at a new world and step across the extrality line without spending weeks in quarantine to identify any dangerous pathogens that the locals don't have immunity to that they may be carrying.

It's a box that you press a thumb to. It painlessly extracts a drop of blood, hums for a few minutes and then lists any know contagious diseases that you carry, even if they are only at the incubation stage. It also lists any organisms carried that isn't in the database.

Is such a device plausible?

What tech level would it be?

How big is it, what does it cost, and what are its limitations?


Hans

 

[Greylond]

MgT Central Supply Catalog has a Mediscanner, Personal (TL12) which is worn all the time by a single person and a Mediscanner, Portable (TL 12). The Portable one takes 2 minutes to run a scan but can do pretty much gives what you're wanting. The Personal one is 1,000 credits, the Portable one is 2,000.

 

[rancke]

MgT Central Supply Catalog has a Mediscanner, Personal (TL12) which is worn all the time by a single person and a Mediscanner, Portable (TL 12). The Portable one takes 2 minutes to run a scan but can do pretty much gives what you're wanting. The Personal one is 1,000 credits, the Portable one is 2,000.

Thank you. That's most satisfactory.


Hans

 

[BytePro]

Is such a device plausible?

Sure - prototype (maybe commercial by now) limited extent devices have existed for years... (some chemical/electro-chem indicator, some bio-reagent response, some optical match).

What tech level would it be?

Current or +1.

However, your description targeted blood-borne pathogens. Non-blood pathogens would not be directly detectable.

So, in addition to pathogen detection, the serum could also be scanned for immune system responses and known genetic indicators - not only to protect the locals, but also the traveler. I.e. anti-bodies and genes could indicate what local diseases the traveler would be immune/susceptible to.

Eucaryotic fungi, protists, and other bacteria of indigenous and non-indigenous microbiota related to skin (and potentially other organs) would also need to be screened for. As noted, some could be done indirectly. Ex: fungal lung infection would not necessarily result in pathogens in blood serum, but indirectly, immune system response could be indicated. But others might have no blood serum indicators (foot fungus; dermal staph; ...).

Air and decon sampling could probably take care of this level of screening to the extent of avoiding more extensive decon and quarantine. Travel history would still also probably factor in - no pathogen detection could likely ever be 100% reliable (excepting, perhaps, a ST style transporter tech...).

 

[McPerth]

I just had an idea for a new medical tool. It's game purpose is to explain why PCs can just arrive at a new world and step across the extrality line without spending weeks in quarantine to identify any dangerous pathogens that the locals don't have immunity to that they may be carrying.

It's a box that you press a thumb to. It painlessly extracts a drop of blood, hums for a few minutes and then lists any know contagious diseases that you carry, even if they are only at the incubation stage. It also lists any organisms carried that isn't in the database.

Is such a device plausible?

What tech level would it be?

How big is it, what does it cost, and what are its limitations?

Sure it is. Even today we can detect most of those pathogens in early stages (incubation period) from a minimal quatity of blood, either by PCR (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction) or by immunofluorescence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immunofluorescence).

Sure - prototype (maybe commercial by now) limited extent devices have existed for years... (some chemical/electro-chem indicator, some bio-reagent response, some optical match).


Current or +1.

However, your description targeted blood-borne pathogens. Non-blood pathogens would not be directly detectable.

So, in addition to pathogen detection, the serum could also be scanned for immune system responses and known genetic indicators - not only to protect the locals, but also the traveler. I.e. anti-bodies and genes could indicate what local diseases the traveler would be immune/susceptible to.

Eucaryotic fungi, protists, and other bacteria of indigenous and non-indigenous microbiota related to skin (and potentially other organs) would also need to be screened for. As noted, some could be done indirectly. Ex: fungal lung infection would not necessarily result in pathogens in blood serum, but indirectly, immune system response could be indicated. But others might have no blood serum indicators (foot fungus; dermal staph; ...).

Air and decon sampling could probably take care of this level of screening to the extent of avoiding more extensive decon and quarantine. Travel history would still also probably factor in - no pathogen detection could likely ever be 100% reliable (excepting, perhaps, a ST style transporter tech...).

Agreed about TL. Most of the pathogens may be dtected by the two techinques told above even if not in the blood, mostly due to the antibodies they produce, that are in the blood anyway.

About the size of the device, today's devices are about the size of a refrigerator or washing machines (per each test), but even disposable chips a little samller than a pragnancy detector may be used for PCR tests, though they are quite expensive as today (less so with time).

 

[Fritz_Brown]

(foot fungus; dermal staph; ...)

Can you imagine an outbreak of medicine-resistant foot fungus in the 3I? Instead of MRSA, you get MRFF? It could be as bad as Virus....... In my ATU, one polity (with a planet called Fortunate) has a particular ... problem... that isn't a foot fungus.... "Fortunate Urticaria". Also known by its initials. *ahem*

 

[McPerth]

Instead of MRSA, you get MRFF?

Just a technicism here: MRSA stands for Meticilin Resistent Staphilococus Aureus, while MRFF would stand (as I understand it) for Multi Resistent Foot Fungus. Aside from this, I guess the acronym would be nice.

And in any case it would be easy to detect by any of the means told above.