Information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider Huawei has donated four Huawei Artificial Intelligence (AI) Cloud diagnostic systems and four thermal scanning systems to boost the Department of Health’s (DoH's) fight against Covid-19.
The AI Cloud solution allows for fast, highly accurate diagnosis of coronavirus pneumonia by analysing computerised tomography scans of patients’ lungs, while the thermal scanning systems can be used in high density pedestrian area’s to conduct body temperature monitoring, which is a critical early detection method.
“Early detection helps to reduce the spread of the virus and to flattening the curve. Speeding up diagnosis time from hours to minutes with a 98% accuracy rate, is a powerful tool for treating, monitoring and management of the disease,” said Huawei South Africa CEO Spawn Fan.
AI, leveraging Huawei Cloud that was built in South Africa, is an important diagnostic method that will boost the DoH team’s efforts to successfully diagnose and treat infected patients.
“Using ICT is another important weapon in our arsenal to fight against this virus. We are grateful to Huawei for sharing this innovative system. We look forward to exploring the capabilities of these solutions as we are constantly looking to capacitate our facilities with technology that improves efficiency and accuracy in our health care delivery,” said Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize.
“The crisis of Covid-19 presents a huge challenge to all humankind in a globalised world; the pandemic we face today can no longer be resolved by any individual country. Rather, we need to combat the virus by working hand-in-hand. At this moment, we cannot beat this virus unless we eliminate boundaries to resources and share our know-how and hard-learned lessons,” concluded Fan.