COLUMBUS, Ohio - The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center is exploring the use of a breath test for rapid COVID-19 screenings.

Results from the initial study in patients were published Thursday in the journal PLOS ONE. The breath test was found to be highly accurate in identifying COVID-19 in critically ill patients.

The current standard test for COVID-19 is the PCR test that requires a nasal swab and lab time to process the sample.

Dr. Matthew Exline, lead researcher and director of critical care at Ohio State Wexner Medical Center University Hospital said the breathalyzer test used in the study can detect COVID within seconds.

According to the release, COVID-19 infection produces a distinct breath print from the interaction of oxygen, nitric oxide and ammonia in the body.

The breath detector can detect that breath print within 15 seconds.

"This novel breathalyzer technology uses nanosensors to identify and measure specific biomarkers in the breath," Pelagia-Irene Gouma, researcher and professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at The Ohio State University said. "This is the first study to demonstrate the use of a nanosensor breathalyzer system to detect a viral infection from exhaled breath prints."

The study followed 46 patients in the ICU with acute respiratory failure that were on ventilators. Half of the patients had an active COVID infection while half did not.

Researchers collected exhaled breath bags from patients four times and tested them within four hours of collection. The breath print was identified in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia with 88% accuracy upon ICU admission.