MicrobeWorld

A $20 chip can cut the time it takes to distinguish swine flu—aka the H1N1 influenza A virus—from days to hours, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said today. The company, InDevR plans to give away about 25 of its IntelliChip Readers (which normally cost $3,900 and scan the FluChips) to public health labs. The cost of the chips will depend upon how many are ordered, but initially they'll charge $20 per chip.