Scientists in Singapore said yesterday they have developed a portable device that can detect the H5N1 bird flu virus in less than half an hour.

The palm-sized "lab-on-a-chip" device is able to quickly detect the presence of the H5N1 virus from a throat swab or stool samples from humans and poultry, said Masafumi Inoue, one of the researchers from the Singapore-based Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology.

The instrument uses a magnetic force to manipulate reagents to rapidly determine whether samples are positive for the deadly H5N1 strain, Inoue said.