Artificial intelligence might hold the key to bringing tuberculosis under control, Google and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation hope. They’re working with India’s Apollo Hospitals and the Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia to test the technology’s effectiveness as a screening tool. The stakes are high, Sreenivasa Raju Kalidindi, CEO of Apollo Radiology International in Hyderabad, India, tells Ruth. Among infectious diseases in India, he said, TB is “second only to Covid in terms of number of deaths.” But TB is curable, so early detection can bring down the toll. One reason the Gates Foundation sought to partner with Google is the company’s ability to scale technology and drive down cost. “We actually search out technologies that may have dual market, where there's an ability to sustain or build revenue from high-income-country markets, and then we help to subsidize the entry into low-income-country or middle-income-country markets,” said Andrew Trister, Gates’ deputy director of digital health and innovation. That method, in turn, gives Google an opportunity to test its health technology and get a jump on a nascent market. Google has identified the health care industry as a key area where it can show off its AI prowess. “Health care is one of the greatest opportunities that I see on the current horizon to demonstrate that AI is really helpful and really adds value,” said Greg Corrado, a Google scientist. “It’s not just automation and cost savings and ChatGPT, right? This is a real problem.” Google has so far licensed three health care algorithms for detecting breast cancer, lung cancer and gene mutations. Another prominent Google initiative targets diabetic retinopathy, an eye condition affecting people with diabetes, which can cause blindness. The company has worked with sister firm Verily to develop a machine-learning algorithm to detect progressive blood vessel damage. It’s tested the technology in India and Thailand with promising results.
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