Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps says its handheld device can detect coronavirus, scientists scoff
The commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps unveiled a handheld device on Wednesday that he said could detect coronavirus almost instantly, but Iranian scientists have rejected the claim and other government officials have distanced themselves.
"This new achievement is an emerging and unique technology that was fully developed by IRGC's Basij forces after the outbreak of the novel coronavirus in the country," said the IRGC's Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami as he presented the purported detection tool at a ceremony.
"A sample of the virus is placed within the device and as the device scans the perimeter it looks for a match, once it finds one it pinpoints it and tells us," said Salami.
According to Salami, the device, which resembles a handheld electric drill with an antenna, can detect a contaminated person or area in five seconds within a radius of 100 meters thanks to a "magnetic system of resonance."
Shortly after the unveiling, at a Health Ministry press conference, a reporter for a Turkish news agency asked a Health Ministry spokesman about the device touted by Salami. The spokesman, Kianoush Jahanpour, said the device had not been licensed by the country’s equivalent of the Food & Drug Administration.
Later the same day, Hesameddin Ashena, an adviser to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, took to Twitter to ask state television networks to avoid broadcasting any "false advertisements for vaccines, drugs, or innovative detection kits" that had not been approved by the Health Ministry.
The day after Salami's presentation, the Iranian Physics Society described the claims made for the device as "quasi-science" on its website.
"Human knowledge at this point cannot reveal or detect particles with dimensions of 100 nanometers. Such a claim is unbelievable and it's an imaginary science," said the group.
At several points in the past dozen years, the Iranian media has reported on handheld devices that have been promoted as able to detect fuel smugglers, copper deposits, bombs, liquids, and underground solids, all linked to the same inventor.
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