BOSTON (WHDH) - Medical researchers in Boston are working to perfect an at-home smell test that they hope can detect the early stages of coronavirus and help stop the disease before it worsens.
The odor test, which involves an 8-and-a-half-by-11 piece of paper and a phone app, is part of a clinical study being led by doctors and healthcare workers at Massachusetts General Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital.
Those who take the test can smell different odors by simply lifting labels on a disposable sniff card. They can then enter their responses into a phone app, tablet, or computer.
The tests would be inexpensive, easy enough to take at home, and provide instant results, according to Dr. Mark Albers, an MGH neurologist at Harvard Medical School.
“After you have the card in your hand, you go to a website and it walks you through the process,” said Albers, who is currently experimenting with the test on COVID-19 patients. “Overall it takes about 5 to 10 minutes.”
The vast majority of coronavirus patients temporarily lose their sense of smell, sometimes without showing other symptoms, Albers said.
“You might want to check your sense of smell one to three times a week,” Albers explained. “If there was a deficit or a change in your smell function, then you would go to get further testing before you would go to work.”
Albers said he envisions the test as a way to possibly identify the virus in the nose before it spreads to the rest of the body.
“If people are aware that they might be at higher risk, and then are able to isolate, that will help to reduce the spread,” Albers added.
Albers said his research results have so far been very promising. He hopes to start mass-producing the tests this fall if all goes as planned.
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