Israel’s Afeka Academic College of Engineering, in Tel Aviv, is working on a project to see if voice and speech processing technology could be used to to identify carriers of the Covid-19 coronavirus who are not yet displaying any symptoms of the disease. The research is being led by the Afeka Centre for Language Processing (ACLP).

“The Afeka Centre for Language Processing has been active in speech processing research for over a decade,” points out Afeka College of Engineering president and speech processing specialist Professor Ami Moyal. “During this time, the Centre has developed tools that are being used to diagnose diseases and assess their progress. We look forward to the ACLP knowledge and algorithms being adapted to assist in this national project.”

The project is being implemented in cooperation with the Rabin Medical Centre at the Sheba Hospital, various high-technology companies, and the Israeli Ministry of Defence. Currently, the researchers are recording speech samples from Covid-19 patients at different stages of the disease and, as a control group, from healthy people. Another control group is composed of people who do not have Covid-19 but are suffering from other diseases which have respiratory symptoms, such as influenza.

The recorded voice samples will be processed using a number of tools, as well as machine learning algorithms and advanced speech processing techniques. The programme is part of Israel’s national response to the pandemic, and will study the effects of Covid-19 on the human voice and speech, with the main aim of being able to distinguish between healthy people and those potentially carrying the coronavirus.

“The target of the project is to develop an innovative algorithm that will be a breakthrough in the identification of potential carriers of the Covid-19 virus,” he explains. “I am optimistic that this impressive and unique collaboration will yield results and contribute to public health in Israel and throughout the world.”

The ACLP is a research and development and instruction laboratory, dedicated to speech and language processing. It integrates academic and industrial knowledge and experience, with the aim of facilitating continuing cooperation between industry and academia, as well as developing innovative solutions to meet the needs of the growing field, for social benefit.