The makers of the smart patch Gx believe that it can be used in response to the Coronavirus pandemic.

These patches are used to measure the components of the sweat among athletes. It is also believed that these can help healthcare workers by providing them information to determine if a case could become life-threatening.

These patches can also be built into N95 masks, allowing it to track the health of medical professionals who are in direct contact with the virus.

Gx Smart Patch

Gx smart patch was developed by Epicore Biosystems, which stems from a researcher group from Northwestern University. According to Spectrum IEEE, the patch has a flexible and stretchable design equipped with a network of microfluid channels.

The patches use a technology that takes sweat samples from the person wearing it, which travels through various chambers in the patch that contains an assortment of chemicals that allows it to analyze the sweat.

The Daily Mail reported that Gatorade will release a version sometime this year, which will measure the sweat amount and the sodium chloride concentration. The wearer can download its companion app that uses an image processing algorithm that looks for color changes in the sweat and shares steps for the wearer to re-hydrate.

"We have deployed these waterproof patches in clinical studies and explored passive modes of sweat induction. For example, [a user can wear a patch] in the shower; the heat generated induces a sufficient amount of sweat for the patch to gather, said Roozbeh Ghaffari, Epicore CEO and co-founder.

How can smart patch aid in the pandemic

Ghaffari and his team are studying how the patch can be used in other ways now that the coronavirus pandemic is still spreading across the globe.

Even the most basic patch can be useful. For example, people with high fevers tend to experience night sweats and so staying hydrated can be a challenge. The patches then monitor the cytokine levels released by the immune system.

In some cases of fever, and the novel coronavirus, cytokine levels tend to increase. Too much of this chemical can cause harmful and possibly life-threatening inflammation. Recently, Epicore had begun deploying the sweat patches to collect sweat to analyze cytokine levels.

The researchers looked at cytokine level differences from sweats that are collected from different parts of the body at different times of the day, as cytokine levels are a good substitute for dermatitis flare-ups and inflammation.

As of now, Ghaffari and his team are still in the early stages of applying their patch technology to help with the current COVID-19 pandemic. He said that it could also be useful for healthcare workers as it could be placed inside an N95 mask to track respiration rate, temperature and moisture.

Moreover, Epicore is currently working with partners to fast-track that project. Epicore's CTO and co-founder, Stephen Lee said that the patches in the masks will give the clinicians and other emergency responders on the front line important information that will help them to track their health.