Beijing OCT 17 — Chinese researchers have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) system that can help doctors discriminate COVID-19 from flu and other respiratory diseases in less than three seconds, according to a paper published in the journal Nature Communications earlier this month.
As the influenza season approaches and the threat of a second wave of COVID-19 growing in many countries, differentiating between the two respiratory illnesses, which share similar symptoms, becomes critical to contain the pandemic.
Researchers from Tsinghua University and Wuhan-based Union Hospital, affiliated with the Huazhong University of Science and Technology, developed the AI system using a large dataset with more than 11,000 CT volumes from COVID-19, influenza, non-viral community-acquired pneumonia, and non-pneumonia.
It can efficiently tell apart theses illnesses with high accuracy by identifying the differences in patients’ CT scans.
