New York-based hospital system Northwell Health said it has started to make its own nasal swabs using 3D printing, enabling it to produce thousands of swabs a day that can be used in testing for the coronavirus.

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Northwell said its focus on swabs was part of an effort to avoid supply shortages related to the components for kits used in testing for COVID-19, the highly contagious, sometimes deadly respiratory disease caused by the coronavirus. Health experts have said widespread testing is the best way to track and trace the spread of the virus.

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Researchers at Northwell and three other institutions – the University of South Florida (USF), Tampa General Hospital in Tampa, Florida, and privately-held, Massachusetts-based 3D printing company Formlabs – devised a way to print the swabs needed to collect mucous and cell samples, according to lead researcher Todd Goldstein, Northwell’s director of 3D design […]

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