BHAGALPUR: Researchers at Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Bhagalpur, are awaiting the official nod for using their innovative ‘software technology’ developed to read ‘chest x-ray’ films or plates and detect Covid-19 within a few seconds.
The researchers’ team head and the institute’s director, Arvind Choubey, and his fellow assistant professor Sandip Raj, told this newspaper on Tuesday that the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and Union ministry of health and family welfare were looking into this unique research to test run and validate the new technology through which precious time and money of patients in diagnosing Covid-19 infection will be saved.
“The Artificial Intelligence (AI) based technology, which has been christened as ‘COVIZN’ and developed in 2020, can read scanned chest x-ray film or plate as well as high resolution computed tomography (HRCT) or CT scan uploaded to the computer in less than one second,” Prof Choubey said.
“The ICMR has formed a high-level advisory committee headed by Dr Randeep Guleria, director of All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, and other medical sciences experts from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) to explore the possibility of using ‘COVIZN’ software and suggest the modalities as soon as possible,” he added.
Choubey also said the sample testing of the technology was done recently in the presence of a team of doctors and experts at Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College and Hospital (JLNMCH) in Bhagalpur, Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical sciences, Patna, and Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, Delhi. The result was 94 to 98% successful. “The data exhibited 98-100% result in diagnosing cases correctly,” he said.
He claimed that the cost of diagnosis of Covid would be less than Rs100 through ‘COVIZN’ software in comparison to conventional microbiological swab test at present. “It will also save precious time of two to three days or even more in getting the test results. The technology is safe and aims at serving the humanity. Hopefully, the ICMR, the Ministry of Health and others will take early action on it,” he said.
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