The big online trading company has developed an artificial intelligence algorithm to diagnose the infection of the new coronavirus in just 20 seconds
A new means to help hospital facilities during the Coronavirus emergency comes from China. The Alibaba group is a world colossus, famous for operating in the field of online sales by fighting Amazon and Ebay. Its founders wanted to help their country first, and then the world, developing an innovative method to fight the coronavirus. The result is a program that in 20 seconds recognizes the symptoms of pneumonia caused by the virus.
Artificial intelligence has studied more than 5000 confirmed cases of pneumonia caused by Covid-19 of Chinese patients. The software can identify differences between CT scans of patients infected with the new virus and ordinary pneumonia scans with an accuracy of 96%. The diagnosis arrives after only 20 secondi, compared to the 10/15 minutes it takes a doctor to accurately analyze the scans. The system was introduced in a hospital in Zhengzhou and then distributed to 100 other facilities in the Chinese provinces most affected by the emergency.
The new system can lighten the workload in hospitals, helping to manage the most serious and critical cases. IA is not yet used in Europe but it is not expected to arrive in the coming days. The very strong push given by Alibaba has encouraged other large companies to develop new methods. One of these is Ping An, a company operating in the financial, banking and insurance sectors. The hope is that more and more solutions or systems will be found to help doctors and facilities to manage Covid-19 patients. In this case, the more solutions the better.