This could be a major development.
A new type of Covid-19 test powered by artificial intelligence (AI) could be capable of identifying coronavirus within one hour, according to new research.
Infectious disease and clinical machine learning experts at the University of Oxford have developed an Artificial Intelligence test that can rapidly screen for Covid-19 in patients arriving in emergency departments.
Researchers have said the tool accurately predicted a patient’s Covid-19 status in more than 90% of cases.
The University of Oxford said that the programme has been running since March and began by developing machine-learning algorithms trained on data from confirmed cases and pre-pandemic controls to detect subtle differences.
The ‘CURIAL’ AI test assesses data routinely collected during the first hour in emergency departments, such as blood tests and vital signs, to determine the chance of a patient testing positive for coronavirus.
A pre-print article has been published explaining exactly how the process is supposed to work.
It reads: “The early clinical course of SARS-CoV-2 infection can be difficult to distinguish from other undifferentiated medical presentations to hospital, however viral specific real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing has limited sensitivity and can take up to 48 hours for operational reasons.
“In this study, we develop two early-detection models to identify Covid-19 using routinely collected data typically available within one hour (laboratory tests, blood gas and vital signs) during 115,394 emergency presentations and 72,310 admissions to hospital.”
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