Covid-19 Detection: Pakistan Headways With COVRAID

WEB DESK: With COVRAID, the infection caused by novel coronavirus can be detected in a human body from X-ray films just ‘within a minute’.

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) based software is developed by the National Institute of Electronics (NIE) which works under the Ministry of Science and Technology.

DRAP approval

The new software has been approved by the Drug Regulatory Authority Pakistan (DRAP).

Confirming its registration, DRAP Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dr. Asim Rauf told News360 that the software has been registered under the DRAP Act 2012.

How it will work?

COVRAID will require a chest X-Ray image as an input for the detection of Covid-19.

The device will detect the infection in less than a minute after input.

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It will help in the swift detection of the pathogen in a human who otherwise looks asymptomatic.

DRAP plans to export the technology to other countries as well.

Efficiency of COVRAID

A tweet posted on the official handle of Science Diplomacy Division, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, claimed the efficiency of AI-based software to be over 90%.

Approved by DRAP, and with an accuracy of more than 90%, COV-RAID can provide results in less than a minute- serving as a cost effective and universally accessible diagnostic tool (2/2)https://t.co/lERinbDlms pic.twitter.com/2L7rV1xgtc

— Science Diplomacy Pakistan (@SciDipPak) November 20, 2020

The software will also help to reduce the burden on the testing services of the healthcare services as, after widely available, the detection of the virus could be done cheaply and fast.

PEC in the race too

Further, Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC) has also conducted several trials for covid-19 detection in a person through X-ray films.