The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) issued a call for candidates to submit technologies for a non-invasive febrile temperature screening of COVID-19 to be included in an upcoming market study.
All interested vendors, manufacturers, and distributors will need to have their submissions in by the end of business on Aug. 31. All submissions will need to adhere to the National Institute of Health’s technical specifications for consideration in the market study, which will examine standoff, contactless temperature screening thermograph technologies capable of mass fever detection and inform governmental response agencies interested in these technologies.
“Temperature screening technologies are one of several tools in our arsenal that can help reduce the spread of COVID-19,” said Bhargav Patel, senior technologist at the S&T’s National Urban Security Technology Laboratory (NUSTL), which is running the study. “While screening for mass fevers may not be a panacea for getting back to ‘normal’ given the reported asymptomatic case rates, it becomes even more important to explore and use every possible tool that we have at our disposal.”
NUSTL will run the system through its System Assessment and Validation for Emergency Responders (SAVER) program. Once complete, the survey’s findings will be posted to the SAVER Document Library on the S&T website.