COVID-19: ICMR deploys IBM's Watson to expedite responses from testing

ICMR Director General Balram Bhargava said that it is critical to remain focused on testing, diagnosis and treatment of coronavirus patients in order to lower the growth curve.

PTI

May 04, 2020 / 16:20 IST

Indian Council of Medical Research has deployed IBM's artificial intelligence tool Watson Assistant to expedite and simplify responses from testing to provide accurate and updated data on COVID-19, the IT company said on Monday. The virtual chat assistant will give responses based on the final guidelines issued by ICMR and also filter old rules that remain valid for handling tests, sample collection, diagnostics, data entry etc related to coronavirus cases.

ICMR Director General Balram Bhargava said that it is critical to remain focused on testing, diagnosis and treatment of coronavirus patients in order to lower the growth curve.

He said with the number of on-field testing teams expanding across the nation as part of India's COVID-19 measures, collaboration with IBM will help automate responses from the field and facilitate access to accurate and updated data on the coronavirus diagnostics and reporting.

"This will help augment our teams' response time and allow them to concentrate on priorities like developing and updating testing and treatment protocols and guidance for COVID-19," Bhargava said.

Coronavirus cases in the country have increased to 42,533 till date and killed 1,373 people.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

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