Health and fitness

The small, portable diagnostic system about the size of a lunch box contains a blood sample test strip, like those used to test diabetes. Scientists, including one of Indian origin, have developed a low-cost blood test that can detect iron and vitamin A deficiency in just 15 minutes. The small, portable diagnostic system about the size of a lunch box contains a blood sample test strip, like those used to test diabetes. "Vitamin A and iron deficiency affect more than one-third of the world's population. Problems resulting from these deficiencies — such as blindness, anaemia and death, particularly among children and women — are a major public health challenge," said Saurabh Mehta, associate professor at Cornell University in the U.S. and corresponding author of the paper published in  PNAS. "Most developing countries do not have access to the needed, sophisticated tools to enable early diagnosis. This test has the potential to solve that," he said. The r...