SACRAMENTO, Calif. – After months of a COVID-19 testing shortage, one global company is taking on the weight to keep up with demand. 

The founder of Envisiontec, Al Siblani, created a unique nasal swab to test for the coronavirus with his own advanced 3-D printers. Siblani says he created it all while battling the virus himself. 

Eight weeks ago, Siblani received a call from the White House Task Force where he was told there were only around 600,000 COVID-19 test swabs in the US. Siblani says that amount was not nearly enough for a country of 350 million people. So, he immediately started working on a solution. 

In just three weeks, Siblani and his team created their own FDA approved nasal swabs. However, while coming up with the design, he contracted the virus after helping in an overcrowded hospital filled with coronavirus patients.

“We went at four o’clock in the morning with my team and installed those splitters on the ventilators and were able to take 18 ventilators and were able to put 36 of those patients on them because they were choking and couldn’t breathe,” Siblani said.

But that didn’t stop him from working on the nasal swab. 

“I didn’t sleep for one minute and I stayed up and at 8:30, I went back to my computer and worked more on the design because now I had more reasons to try and get more people tested,” he said.

While battling COVID-19, Siblani spent 16 days in isolation and created 17 different designs before he developed the one in use today. But once he produced the finished product, he made sure to test it on himself.

“I was one of the very first patients that tested negative with the NP Swab that I invested, that I invented,” Siblani said.

He says that with their equipment at Envisiontec, they can make up to half a million swabs in a single day.

Thanks to his dedication, his company is being called on by cities, labs, and hospitals from all over. USC and UCLA are just a few examples of some who have already reached out for nasal swabs.

Siblani continues to play a large part in fighting this pandemic. Besides helping with ventilators and coming up with a nasal swab design, he’s also donated his plasma twice since recovering from COVID-19. 

“Strength is all that I have and I’ll continue to keep plugging away and I’ll continue to keep working on this and try to see what else we can do to get out of this pandemic,” Siblani says.

Now that he’s providing millions of nasal swabs across the country, he’s glad that his invention is able to help others and also be a financial success.