The latest weapon in the battle to combat rising STI rates is a condom invented by a team of teenagers. It “glows” in order to detect STIs.
The idea for the condom, which is being called S.T.EYE, came from a team competing at the TeenTech Awards, a competition challenging 11 to 16-year-old kids to come up with “technology to make life better, simpler or easier.”
The condom works by using a small layer of chemicals on the rubber’s surface. These chemicals attach to bacteria and viruses commonly found in STIs. The reaction causes molecules on the condom to emit a low fluorescent light that changes color based on the STI it attaches to.
Designers of the condom said the rubber would glow yellow for herpes, green for chlamydia, blue for syphilis and purple if it found the human papillomavirus. Daanyaal Ali, 14, who is one of the S.T.EYE creators from Isaac Newton Academy said,
We wanted to create something that makes detecting harmful STIs safer than ever before, so that people can take immediate action in the privacy of their own homes without the invasive procedures at the doctors. We’ve made sure we’re able to give peace of mind to users and make sure people can be even more responsible than ever before.
The team behind S.T.EYE took home the top prize at this year’s TeenTech Awards in the health category. Other inventions that made it to the finals included a hair clip with WiFi that changed based on users’ clothing and a wrist device that would connect to a phone to give users the ability to call for help if they were in danger.
The S.T.EYE is not available in stores yet and is still just a concept, but there is clearly a market for the product.
