County governments have been encouraged to embrace Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to eliminate Tuberculosis (TB).
Philip Waweru, Director at Diagnosal Africa said that this will help in early detection of the disease.
“This technology is meant to fill in the gaps of the required radio technologists which help people to know their status at an early stage,” he said.
TB is an infectious bacterial disease that mainly affects the lungs. It spreads when an infected person coughs or sneezes.
This is meant to fill in the gaps of the required radio technologists which help people to know their status at an early stage
Phillip Waweru
An article by imaging technology news says TB is an infectious disease that kills more than a million people worldwide every year.
One way to detect this disease is through Chest-x ray which may show tuberculosis of the lungs other parts of the body.
Henceforth, the AI system detects Tb in chest X-ray at a level comparable to radiologists, according to a study published by Radiological Society of North America.
Researchers say the AI system is able to aid screening in areas with limited radiologist resources.
Shortage of experts
AI is able to bridge the expert shortage through teaching computers to recognize, evaluate and predict the bacteria from X-rays for faster interpretation.
There are other ways of detecting the disease which includes sputum microscopy, where sputum of a person is examined under a microscope.
TB skin test can also be applied.
The common symptoms are usually fever, cough, night sweats, loss of appetite, weight loss, blood stain sputum and chest pains.
“There are effective drugs for treating the disease but large scale screening programs to detect it are not always feasible,” noted the article.