Technology is used as a tool for medications. There are cases that mobile smartphones are considered as life saving device. Scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the University of California, Berkeley developed a device that could detect parasites. This was made possible by the adaptation of the concept of iPhone microscope project. CellScope is a project made by the same team of scientists and it functions as a microscope that captures images.

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According to an article written by Rachel Feltman, she said that the recently developed app, CellScope Loa, functions as a microscope specifically to detect in a patient's blood the Loa worm or also known as the African Eye Worm. This parasite is a nematode that dwells in the blood. An earlier detection of the worm can help save a life because it may co-infect with other parasitic diseases. It is because this specific parasite could make other illnesses dangerous to treat.

As said by Dan Fletcher, one of the researchers of the project, "The gold standard for quantifying the worms is quite laborious, you have to take a blood sample, then smear and stain it, and then a trained microscopist has to stand there and count."

It only takes three minutes to finish the whole process. CellScope Loa is being tested out in Cameroon, Africa. The results of the device matched the manual worm counts that were taken proving its effectiveness. 

How does CellScope works? The cellphone camera is used as microscope and for taking videos and with the use of the Bluetooth device of a phone it allows the blood sample to move around as needed. An app keep tracks of the parasites' movement and counts them, the tally will be displayed afterwards.

It may be just a device but its working efficiency proves its worth to save a life and help in the technological advancement in the field of Medicine. 

Tagsparasite, Cell scope, Mobile Phones, parasite detection