In a significant departure from the traditional urine collection for pregnancy detection, an Israeli company has introduced a saliva-based pregnancy test kit to enhance the in-home testing experience.
Israeli startup Salignostics is responsible for developing the kit–Salistick–which will be available for purchase in various European countries, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel. It is also currently undergoing a certification process to expand its outreach.
Salistick is a user-friendly innovative approach that provides highly accurate results, particularly during the early stages of pregnancy. It can be easily used anytime and everywhere, Abingdon, the sole distributor of Salistick in the U.K. said on its website.
Salistick detects pregnancy by identifying a hormone called human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), which is made in the body when someone is pregnant. It’s accurate about 96.32% on the first day after a missed period, and 97.35% on the second day, according to IFL Science.
The creators of Salistick came up with the idea after years of studying saliva. They realized that saliva could be used to detect several changes the body is undergoing, be it pregnancy or COVID-19. The researchers wanted to make it easier for people to test for these conditions by using saliva instead of other methods like urine or blood, Wired reported back in 2022.
“Saliva is the key to rapid diagnostics for a variety of medical reasons. It is the only non-invasive, easy, and hygienic means to detect hormones, viruses, and even diseases,” said Prof. Aaron Palmon, co-founder of Salignostics, told Wired. “With Salistick, we leverage the powerful diagnostics abilities we have been able to create from analyzing saliva. This product completely removes the need for blood and urine samples when testing for pregnancy.”
“This exciting innovation offers women the opportunity to test for pregnancy in a cleaner, more straightforward and easier way, and is a long overdue development…
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