Axel, aged 12, invented a tool to help medics learn how to test for corona virus.
When corona virus came along a few months ago, Axel, whoâs 12, wanted to help.
He saw on TV how people were being tested to see if they had the virus. Have you seen those tests? A nurse or a doctor pokes a stick in your nose.
It hurts if they donât do it right. Plus, they often miss the âtargetâ, where the virus sits way back above our throat. Many test results are wrong. Axel learned that lots of medical staff arenât fully trained in poking noses with sticks. Ouch!
Research
How could he help? Heâs not a nose surgeon. Or a medical professor. Heâs at school. Though he would like to be a doctor when heâs older.
He did a lot of reading about the problem. Then, bingo! He had it.
What medics needed was practice. Fast. But if they practised on human âguinea pigsâ, that would be a quick way to get sore noses!
Axelâs solution?
Enter the noseâŠ
A life-size plastic nose. No, not the kind a clown puts on!
You can see Axel here showing you his invention ; a model of a real human nose with all the tubes and canals on the inside. Itâs quite a maze in there!
Axel got talking with his dad, whoâs a hospital doctor in Strasbourg, a French city where there was a lot of corona virus. With help from other medics and technical experts, they managed to build a model.
In the âtarget zoneâ, right at the back of the nose, Axel added some paper covered in red ink. If a nurse pokes through to exactly the right spot, they get ink on their cotton-wool swab. That proves theyâve hit the bullseye!
They used 3D printing, with hard and soft plastic to copy the bony and fleshy bits of our noses. That way, Axel can generously publish free instructions on the Internet and people with 3D printers anywhere in the world can make one of their own.
A tip for youâŠ
More and more people need to be tested as we stop staying at home. So his invention comes at a vital time.
Friends thought Axelâs plastic nose was pretty good, he says. Though some of them found it a bit âgrossâ. That doesnât put him off, though.
Youâre never too young to have really important ideas. And as Axel told our readers:
âWhen you have ideas, you have to see them through to the end.â
Problem?
Millions of people will be tested for coronavirus by putting a stick up their nose. Many testers have little experience, which risks sore noses and poor results.
Solution!
A realistic, plastic nose, downloaded to a 3D printer. Medics can practise till they are pain-free and on-target every time!
Grown-upsâ follow-up
The team involved in bringing Axel Sananes‘ idea to reality included: Strasbourg-based ENT medical device firm Dianosic, Paris-based medical 3D printing firm Bone 3D, the Strasbourg public teaching hospitals CHRU Strasbourg and ProtĂšge Ton Soignant, a crowd-funding campaign to buy equipment for medics during the crisis, which donated over âŹ6,000 to build the prototype.
Although there is a lot of talk of other kinds of tests for the virus, checking for antibodies in the blood and so on, nasal testing remains the main way to determine whether or not someone is currently infected and infectious. With lockdown easing, millions more such tests are likely to be carried out, many by people with little experience of the procedure. So letâs hope Axelâs nose gets widely distributed!
You can watch Axel and his father Nicolas Sananes present the simulator here on Instagram. (In French)
And finally, our top tip from discovering Axelâs story â if you ever have to be tested for corona virus, just make sure the tester goes in PERPENDICULAR to your face. Pushing the swab up the nose is a recipe for discomfort and false negatives!
