In modern times computers are a huge part of our everyday lives, however, their use in fighting disease often flies under the radar.
One of the ways that technology is used to fight disease is through early disease detection. Machine learning, where computers learn complex data patterns to make predictions, has the potential to revolutionise early cancer diagnosis. This is vital in helping more people beat cancer and an example of this is lung cancer. 5 year survival rates following stage 1 diagnosis is around 70-90% however, overall rates are currently around 15%. This shows the impact and importance in diagnosing the cancer early, and artificial intelligence is critical for this.
Another key way that computers have been used in recent years to fight disease is rapid case identification. This is when computers go through large amounts of data to try and identify patterns and was particularly important during the Covid-19 crisis. For example the Track and Trace service that was provided worked using computers and helped to prevent many deaths by tracking who you where in contact with, and keeping track in bursts of infections. Another way that rapid case identification is used is that in airports in Singapore have thermal cameras that systematically identify individuals with a high temperature. More can be found out about this here.
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