'Smart' Diagnostic Tool Developed For Covid-19

Researchers in Hong Kong and Macau say they have developed an artificial intelligence system that can diagnose Covid-19 in around 20 seconds – right in your doctor’s clinic – even before any laboratory tests are done.

Patients do have to have a lung scan taken first. It’s then compared to a database of almost four thousand other scans – to ascertain whether the patient has Covid-19, or another form of pneumonia.

The scientists – from the Polytechnic University and Macau's University of Science and Technology – say their system is up to 95 percent accurate, which is comparable to the success rate of experienced doctors.

It can also predict how severe the illness will become.

But Dr Manson Fok, the Dean of Medicine at the Macau University, said the true power of the diagnostic tool is its speed.

“If we do it the traditional way and [have] the doctor read the CT scan, it takes 15 to 20 minutes per patient, so if you have several hundred new cases a day, it’s impossible”, he said.

“That is a limiting factor, but with this AI system they do it automatically in 20 seconds so that we can process a huge number of suspected patients in a very short period of time and then administer the appropriate treatment for them.”

Researchers also say the system promises to be a very helpful aide to doctors who don’t have much experience in dealing with Covid-19.

Places such as China, the United States and Iran, that have had major outbreaks of the disease, have been using similar systems, but researchers concede the tech may not be as useful in Hong Kong, which has been spared a major outbreak for now.

However, they say they’ll talk to the Hospital Authority to see if they’re interested nonetheless.