Doctors in Brazil is using Artificial Intelligence as a new tool in their fight against COVID-19. AI will aid them to detect COVID-19 infections. It is helping to fill the gap of COVID testing with a software called RadVid-19 developed using algorithms from Chinese firm Huawei and German company Siemens. The new software helps to conclude whether the patient is infected and allows them to take the right measures immediately.
Artificial intelligence systems can imitate human intelligence by learning, rationalizing and self-correction. It has an endless capacity for data processing and learning at a speed, that humans cannot match. AI has the potential to be more precise than doctors at making medical diagnoses and conducting surgical interventions. Huge amounts of health data from electronic medical records, personal monitoring devices, and social media platforms are collectively brought to give machines as much health information as possible about people and their conditions
RadVid-19 help doctors to decide the right course of medication for their patients. It examines chest X-rays and CT scans to find spots on the patient’s lungs that are possible markers of infection by the novel coronavirus. This AI-based software identifies those areas and predicts the probability of COVID-19 infection. It shows how the patient’s lungs are changing overtime on a screen and allows them to examine the white and yellow circles marking potential infection. The implemented algorithm on the platform analyzes the collected tomography images, creating a report that can be obtained by the radiologist to assist in the clinical decision.
Around 43 Brazilian hospitals were using this software and 60 percent of them are public hospitals. RadVid-19 is not a replacement for the lab-based diagnosis by a physician. But it can assist doctors to decide what treatment to pursue on a long wait for lab results to come back. RadVid-19 had examined over 10,700 X-rays and CT scans by the end of July. Researchers are still assessing the accuracy rate of RadVid-19.
Brazil has the second-highest number of COVID-19 positive cases and deaths and has been hit harder by this pandemic than any country except the United States. The numbers would rise if there were no widespread testing.
