13/03/2020
- System analyses hundreds of images in seconds, then advises doctors what to do next
- China has offered free use of the machine around the world, but US Centres for Disease Control says it does not recommend using scans to diagnose Covid-19
Chinese doctors are using AI to help them diagnose Covid-19 patients. Photo: AFP
A supercomputer in China offers doctors around the world free access to an
artificial intelligence diagnostic tool for early identification of
Covid-19 patients based on a chest scan.
The AI system on the Tianhe-1 computer can go through hundreds of images generated by computed tomography (CT) and gave a diagnosis in about 10 seconds, according to the National Supercomputer Centre in Tianjin, which hosts the machine.
An employee at the facility said the results could then be used to help medical professionals – especially those in areas that have limited test kits or are hit by a sudden increase in suspected cases – to quickly distinguish between patients infected with the novel coronavirus and those with common pneumonia or another illness.
The accuracy of the analysis was higher than 80 per cent “and increasing steadily every day”, he said.
The system has an English interface and the reports it produces direct doctors to those areas of the patient’s lungs that require special attention by circling them in different colours.
It also provides an estimate of the likelihood of the person having contracted Covid-19, in a range from zero to 10, with lower numbers suggesting a higher probability of infection.
It even advises on what to do next, based on the experiences and lessons learned from doctors who have treated coronavirus patients.
Dr Xu Bo, a lead scientist on the project at Tianjin Medical University, said in an interview this week with Science and Technology Daily that the accuracy of the system was initially “rather poor”.
But the team worked round the clock to train the machine using the latest information from doctors with experience of Covid-19 and their clinical practices, he said.
The AI system directs doctors to those areas of the patient’s lungs that require special attention by circling them in different colours. Photo: Handout
As the number of samples increased, the AI’s performance improved significantly, and is now helping medical teams fighting the coronavirus in more than 30 hospitals in Wuhan and other cities.
Xu said that it would take an experienced doctor about 15 minutes to go through the 300 images generated by a CT scan, while the AI did the job in about 10 seconds.
The system could be accessed via a computer or even a mobile phone, he said.
The use of chest scans for diagnosis was first proposed by doctors fighting the Covid-19 epidemic in Wuhan. After the city went into lockdown, a large number of suspected patients appeared and testing them for infection using genetic methods took from several hours to several days. Many people are thought to have died while waiting for their results to come back.
In a series of studies, including a paper published in medical journal The Lancet, Chinese doctors showed that CT scans were a reliable tool because the lungs of coronavirus patients had features unseen in other diseases.
The Chinese government accepted their advice and said scan results could be used as credentials for treatment. Many scientists have said that decision played an important role in controlling the outbreak in the country.
But not all countries agree with that methodology. The US Centres for Disease Control, for instance, “does not currently recommend CXR or CT to diagnose Covid-19”.
It said the reason was that using scans would attract more suspected cases to hospitals and in turn raise the likelihood of them infecting other patients and staff.
The American College of Radiology said: “CT should not be used to screen for or as a first-line test to diagnose Covid-19.”
After the device was used on a suspected patient, it could take an hour to clean the test room, the college said on Wednesday.
A doctor working at a Beijing hospital treating Covid-19 patients said the CT machine could scan hundreds of patients a day in China, but because of the different protocols in some Western countries, the number there fell to just one or two.
“Governments should not let the CT sit idle during a major public health crisis,” she said.
“If you can’t give the people a test, give them a scan.”
Source: SCMP
Posted in American College of Radiology, Artificial intelligence, beijing hospital, chest scans, Chinese, computed tomography (CT), coronavirus, COVID-19 patients, diagnose, National Supercomputer Centre, patients, Science and Technology Daily, supercomputer, Tianhe-1 computer, Tianjin, Tianjin Medical University, Uncategorized, US Centres for Disease Control, Western countries, Wuhan |
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19/02/2020
- Forty countries will be able to diagnose the disease, and the Africa CDC is training health workers
- Until two weeks ago, there were only two laboratories on the continent that could test for the virus, in Senegal and South Africa
A scientist researches the coronavirus at the Pasteur Institute in Dakar, Senegal, which until two weeks ago was one of just two labs in Africa that could test for the disease. Photo: AFP
Forty countries in Africa will be able to test for the
deadly new coronavirus
by the end of the week, the WHO said, after Egypt confirmed the first case on the continent last week.
The World Health Organisation said many of those nations had been sending samples elsewhere for testing and waiting several days for results.
“Now they can do it themselves, within 24 to 48 hours,” WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a media briefing on Tuesday.
Until about two weeks ago, there were only two laboratories in the continent of 54 countries – in Senegal and South Africa – with the reagents needed to test for the virus. That meant dozens of nations that had quarantined suspected patients were sending samples to South Africa or Senegal to be tested.
The WHO earlier this week sent reagent kits for coronavirus diagnosis to more than 20 countries in Africa to step up diagnosis of the virus, which causes a disease now known as Covid-19. The global health body said more countries in Africa were expected to receive testing kits this week.
In addition, the WHO last week sent testing kits to Cameroon, Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Tunisia, Uganda and Zambia.
Coronavirus: WHO urges caution over study showing ‘decline’ in new Covid-19 cases in China
Tedros said some countries in Africa, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, were using systems developed to test for the deadly Ebola virus to now test for the coronavirus.
“This is a great example of how investing in health systems can pay dividends for health security,” Tedros said.
Several countries, including Ethiopia and South Sudan, were prioritising surveillance and monitoring at ports of entry, he said. “We’re also working with partners in some of the most fragile contexts, from Syria to the Central African Republic, to prepare countries for the arrival of the virus,” he said.
The WHO and Egyptian health officials on Friday confirmed that a 33-year-old foreigner had tested positive for the coronavirus. Egypt’s health ministry said the patient had tested positive for the virus without any symptoms, raising concern that there could be undetected cases on the continent, as countries scramble to equip labs to test for the disease.
The asymptomatic patient in Egypt was identified through contact screening of an index case who travelled to Cairo on a business trip from January 21 to February 4 and tested positive for the virus on February 11 in China, the WHO regional office said.
The new virus strain has killed more than 2,000 people and infected over 74,000 since the outbreak began in central China in December. It has spread to more than 20 countries.
Screening measures have been stepped up across Africa, including quarantining all passengers arriving from Chinese cities, amid fears that poorer countries with weaker health systems may struggle to cope if the virus spreads on the continent. More than a dozen countries still do not have the capacity to test for the pneumonia-like illness.
There are concerns that Africa’s close links with China put it at high risk for the spread of the new virus. Africa has become home to millions of Chinese since Beijing started looking to the continent for raw materials for its industries and markets for its products. China has been Africa’s largest trading partner since 2009, after it overtook the United States, with two-way trade standing at US$108 billion last year, according to China’s commerce ministry.
Africa CDC director John Nkengasong said it had been “investing in preparedness and response to the disease”. Photo: Reuters
John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), said it was working closely with the WHO and other partners to ensure that Egypt had the diagnostic tools it needed, and that the right actions were taken to contain the spread of the virus.
“We anticipated that the Covid-19 outbreak would inevitably impact Africa. That is why the Africa CDC has been working actively with African Union member states and partners in the past four weeks and investing in preparedness and response to the disease,” he said.
“[Last week in Dakar, Senegal] we conducted training and supplied test kits to 16 African laboratories, including from Egypt. Egypt also received additional test kits from the WHO,” Nkengasong said.
The Africa CDC would train 40 health workers from nine countries, including Egypt, in Nairobi this week, he said, on “enhancing detection and investigation of Covid-19 at points of entry”.
The Chinese medical workers on the front line of the coronavirus fight in Wuhan
On Monday, Ethiopia, home to one of the continent’s busiest airports, said it had received equipment and reagents for virus detection and control. “We are working hard day and night with the government to improve the critical measures needed to ensure that the country is ready to effectively respond to an outbreak of Covid-19,” said Boureima Hama Sambo, the WHO representative in Ethiopia.
despite pressure for it to suspend services to the country. Many countries on the continent have restricted travel to and from mainland China, while six out of eight African airlines with Chinese routes have halted flights until the virus is contained, including EgyptAir.
Egypt has suspended all flights to and from the mainland until the end of the month and has evacuated more than 300 Egyptians from Wuhan, the epicentre of the epidemic.
Source: SCMP
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