The detection of COVID-19 in patients may now take just three to five seconds, thanks to an Artificial Intelligence-enabled app developed by this prof from IIT Roorkee. Even though a lot of researchers and students across the country have been working on this technology and are conducting trials, a faculty from IIT Roorkee says that his software that employs AI is now ready to use and had a 90 per cent success rate.
Dr Kamal Jain, a faculty from the Civil Engineering department has now submitted the software to the ICMR. "It is ready to use. We are getting a lot of queries and on Friday, I wrote to the ICMR about this," he says. Jain says that he has been working in this technology, which detects Corona-induced pneumonia on patients through their X-Rays, for the last three years. "We have been working on this AI for years and have been using this in different cases. Since the outbreak happened, we have been customising it to be used in COVID-19 detection. Since we knew the technology beforehand, it was easier," says Jain, who adds that COVID testing will be much cheaper after this software gets implemented.
“I first developed an artificial intelligence-based database after analysing over 60,000 X-Ray scans, including those of COVID-19, pneumonia and tuberculosis patients to differentiate between the kind of chest congestion suffered in the three diseases. I also analysed the chest x-ray database of the United States’ NIH Clinical Center,” Jain told PTI previously.
Explaining the way in which the software works, Jain says, "Normally, the X-Ray is in a digital format. The software analyses its snapshot and gives the result in 3 to 5 seconds." He is soon to file for a patent for the same. We had previously written about students in various Indian universities too who have been working on similar software. "I have come across a few such students. A lot of them had called me asking if they could work with me. However, they are not at the stage where we are now. Many of them are starting from the beginning, So, we cannot include them," says Jain.
(With PTI Inputs)
