A Malaysian IT service management company has developed an extensive artificial intelligence-powered (AI) coronavirus (Covid-19) risk profiling system.
Malaysia’s eGovernment services provider said the system has capabilities that include historical geolocation and anomaly tracking for Chinese travellers.
It is now making the technology available to the governments of Malaysia and the Philippines.
The firm stated that the timely introduction of the innovation had been made possible through the leveraging of its partnership with a Beijing-based overseas travel services firm.
It was noted that in the light of the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, the need for a smart health profiling and tracking system capable of handling large volumes of inbound Chinese travellers has become a matter of profound urgency for governments worldwide.
Particularly of those countries that are popular destinations for visitors from mainland China, the epicentre of the virus.
The tech firm said it is a fully-automated system that encompasses the analytics of a vast number of available data points.
The data includes visitors’ previous known whereabouts as well as heart rate and blood pressure readings crossed-referenced against public transportation ridership and exposure to locations with incidences of infections.
In addition, the system provides ongoing engagement with the visitor within the country, thus enabling health authorities to be alerted of any anomalies and to take immediate appropriate measures such as in the event that evacuation or quarantine of affected persons are necessary.
Implementing travel restrictions on visitors from certain cities like Wuhan and Wenzhou can be tricky and inaccurate if Governments depend on information on passports.
With this system, historical geolocation information coupled with other relevant parameters creates a health risk profile on individual travellers that allows authorities to conduct a more detailed assessment on high health risk visitors.
The data analytics algorithm constantly evolves as researchers learn more about the virus each passing day.
According to an earlier report, the Chinese government turned to AI as Chinese authorities race to contain the spread of a new virus.
The virus has infected more than 34,000 people and killed more than 700 in China, Beijing is turning to a familiar set of tools to find and prevent potential infections: data tracking and artificial intelligence.
Several Chinese tech firms have developed apps to help people check if they have taken the same flight or train as confirmed virus patients, scraping data from lists published by state media.
In Guangzhou, southern Guangdong province, robots at one public plaza have even been deployed to scold passers-by who are not wearing masks.
And in Beijing, one neighbourhood committee responsible for an apartment complex of about 2,400 households said they used flight and train data to keep track of everyone’s recent travel record.
The use of big data technology to track, screen priority cases, and effectively forecast the development of the epidemic in real-time, according to China’s National Health Commission (NHC).
The aim is to strengthen the information link between… security and transportation, and other departments, a statement said, urging governments to share train, flight, communication, and medical data.