New Delhi: An Isreali biotech company, Smart Biotech is claiming that their new invention has the potential to save thousands of lives.

Invented by immunologist, Dr Tamar Jehuda- Cohenm, the SMARTube treats a blood sample, stimulating it to produce antigens to HIV, if the blood is infected.

Normally it can take months for a person infected with HIV to produce antigens to the disease, says Dr Jehuda-Cohen. And it is the presence of the antigens that HIV tests check for. "There is nothing like this in the world.

It is a change of the way we ask a question in diagnostics. Instead of asking what there is in the body. We are using the tube in order to tell us what we would be able to see if we waited long enough. But usually we don't have that time to wait,” says Dr Jehuda-Cohen.

Smart Biotech says the implications of speeding up the diagnostic process will save lives. By informing HIV patients of their status faster, it will allow them to seek treatment sooner, and change behaviours that might spread the disease.

But some in the medical community are not yet convinced. The director of the Institute of Allergy, immunology and AIDS at Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Israel, Dr Shimon Pollack says Smart Biotech needs to publish more research on the SMARTube.

"I don't see any advantage of this method because we have now other methods like PCR, like P24 antigenamia that we can measure and we can state the diagnosis of HIV 10 to 12 days after the infection, “ says Dr Pollack.

Smart Biotech refused to talk about the price of the SMARtube, only saying that the company is determined to make the device affordable for those battling the spread of HIV no matter where they are in the world.

And while there might already be competitors to the device on the market, it's that competition which might ensure SMARTube's affordability.