The United Nations (U.N.) meeting in Vienna of animal health experts from 15 nations around the world began discussing this revolutionary technology on Monday.
The five-day talks are part of a coordinated research project with an initial funding of $500,000, according to the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.
The current model of the mobile testing device costs $1,000 and could potentially save vital time in fighting the bird flu and other livestock diseases by enabling just about anyone to test and identify outbreak sources.
The device will be able to detect bird flu samples taken right from the dead animals at the scene and provide much faster results.
The future hope by manufacturers is to make the system even smaller, with researchers attempting to create a "laboratory in a pen."
"The genius here is that such mobile testers can be used by anyone, with the most basic training," said John Crowther of the Vienna-based Joint U.N. FAO/International Atomic Energy Agency Programme's Animal Production and Health section.
"Even farmers could do a test and the result could immediately be processed back to a central point, like a mobile phone message," added Crowther.
Crowther claims that "within two years, such tests could revolutionize disease diagnosis."
The bottom line is to enable just about anyone to contain the spread of these diseases by using a time-saving device such as this one.
As Crowther said, "Ultimately the tests would be done locally by people in their own countries, making schemes much more efficient in everything including speed, costs and local knowledge."
"The latest outbreak of bird flu, starting in Asia in late 2003 and spreading to Europe and Africa, is estimated to have cost the Asian poultry sector alone at least $10 billion," according to a U.N. News report.
