Medical device, medical system and method for detecting diseases

1. A medical device to provide an alert of the potential detection of a gas or a disease in an infrastructure having a chamber of air and a geographic location, the device comprising:

one or more sample ports of known sub-location within the infrastructure, the one or more sample ports being open to a designated part of the infrastructure and a sample of air from the air chamber being operable to pass through the one or more sample ports;

a laser-based molecular characteristic detector to receive the sample of air from a specific one of the one or more sample ports and being operable to generate molecular characteristic data for identifying gases or diseases from the sample of air;

a processor operable to analyse the molecular characteristic data from the sample of air and to issue an alert output in response to the detection of particular molecular characteristic data from the sample of air; and

a treatment module for treating the sample of air, wherein the treatment module comprises an autoclave, operable to subject the sample of air to high pressure saturated steam at approximately 120° C. or higher.

2. The medical device of claim 1 , wherein the infrastructure is a static infrastructure.

3. The medical device of claim 2 , wherein the static infrastructure has a geographic location, data of which is available to the medical device.

4. The medical device of claim 1 , wherein the infrastructure is a mobile infrastructure.

5. The medical device of claim 4 , wherein the mobile infrastructure has a mechanism for identifying the geographic location of the infrastructure and data from the mechanism is available to the medical device.

6. The medical device of claim 1 , wherein the alert output comprises composite alert data and the composite alert data comprises geographic location data for the infrastructure; and sub-location data specifying the sub-location within the infrastructure from which the sample of air was taken.

7. The medical device of claim 1 , wherein the detector is an optical frequency comb detector.

8. The medical device of claim 1 , wherein there are a plurality of sample ports arranged around the infrastructure at designated locations known to the medical device.

9. The medical device of claim 8 , wherein each sample port has a unique identifier.

10. The medical device of claim 6 , further comprising an air mover to draw air into the or each sample port and downstream to the detector.

11. The medical device of claim 1 , wherein a sampler switches the supply of air samples to the detector between respective sample ports so that samples from known sub-locations in the infrastructure are provided to the detector one at a time for analysis, thereby linking a sample of air being analysed in the detector to a sample port of known sub-location in the infrastructure.

12. A medical system to provide an alert of the potential detection of a gas or a disease in an infrastructure having a chamber of air and a geographic location, the system comprising:

one or more sample ports of known sub-location within the infrastructure, the one or more sample ports being open to a designated part of the infrastructure and a sample one or more samples of air from the air chamber being operable to pass through the one or more sample ports;

one or more laser-based molecular characteristic detectors, each laser-based molecular characteristic detector to receive a respective one of the one or more samples of air from a specific one of the one or more sample ports and being operable to generate molecular characteristic data for identifying gases or diseases from each sample the respective one or more samples of air;

a processor operable to analyse the molecular characteristic data from the sample of air and to issue an alert output in response to the detection of particular molecular characteristic data from the sample of air; and

a treatment module for treating the sample of air, wherein the treatment module comprises an autoclave, operable to subject the sample of air to high pressure saturated steam at approximately 120° C. or higher.

13. The medical system of claim 12 , wherein some components of the medical system are allocated to one or more specific sample ports and other components of the medical system are common to the system.

14. The medical system of claim 13 , wherein each detector is allocated to one or more specific sample ports and the remaining components of the medical system are common to the system.

15. A method of detecting a gas or a disease in an infrastructure having a chamber of air and a geographic location, comprising:

receiving a sample of air by a laser-based molecular characteristic detector from a sample port located in a sub-location of the infrastructure;

analysing the sample of air and generating molecular characteristic data of the sample of air from the sub-location;

analysing the molecular characteristic data to detect particular molecular characteristic data from the sample of air;

reporting the results of the analysis together with the geographic location of the infrastructure and the sub-location from which the sample of air was taken; and

treating the sample of air with a treatment module, wherein the treatment module comprises an autoclave, operable to subject the sample of air to high pressure saturated steam at approximately 120° C. or higher.

16. The method of claim 15 , wherein the reporting comprises issuing an alert in response to the detection of particular molecular characteristic data from the sample of air.