AFP
In a prison in Mozambique, AI to track tuberculosis
In the courtyard of a maximum security prison in Maputo, Mozambique, a man with a shaved head, in an orange T-shirt crossed out with the word “inmate”, waits patiently, his chest facing a large white tablet hung vertically. Behind him, a nurse presses the button on the portable lungs. AI makes it possible to read the radio precisely and instantly, without requiring the expertise of a doctor. “It’s real time, we have the results in less than five minutes,” explains the caregiver. The image is soon displayed on the screen of a technician, installed a few meters away, accompanied by a diagnosis: “Radiological signs suggestive of tuberculosis – negative”, displays the computer. This test is part of a pilot project aimed at examining prisoners in three prisons in the Mozambican capital and managed by Stop TB, an organization supported by the United Nations. Overcrowded prisons are a hotbed of tuberculosis, the second deadliest disease in the world, after Covid, and which infected more than ten million people in 2022 and killed 1.3 million, according to the WHO. Nearly one in four people who contracted the disease last year were in Africa. Mozambique, which has a population of 32 million, has recorded around 120,000 cases. Early diagnosis helps save lives and stop the spread, because while chronic cough is a hallmark of tuberculosis, some carriers show no symptoms. This is particularly true in prison, where tuberculosis spreads through the air and crowded cells provide breeding ground. According to the United Nations, Mozambique’s prisons were over capacity by around 50% in 2022. – “Science Fiction ” – The portable X-ray machine, aided by AI, improves traditional diagnosis because it is faster than skin or blood tests which must be analyzed in the laboratory. In addition, it does not require patients to travel and does without radiologists, who may be rare in rural areas or poor countries, explains Suvanand Sahu, deputy director of Stop TB. “It’s a big technological step forward,” he enthuses. At the provincial penitentiary in Maputo, capital of Mozambique, inmates who test positive are placed in quarantine behind a rusty metal door. Inside, a dozen men wearing masks sit on mattresses on the floor, while clothes, blankets and other personal belongings hang from a rope fixed between two faded blue pillars. Serious cases are taken to the infirmary.”It’s not easy to see your comrades stretch, play, but you have to accept that I’m sick,” confides Kennet Fortune, detained for ten years for a drug case, pointing at the trees in the prison yard. Testing positive for tuberculosis, he is currently undergoing treatment which may take months. ‘When the time is right, I will come out.’ Earlier this month, a WHO report found that global tuberculosis deaths fell in 2022, a sign of progress in eradicating the disease . And 7.5 million people were newly diagnosed in the same period, the highest figure since WHO began monitoring TB in 1995. Stop TB’s Sahu hopes the success of Pilot projects like Mozambique’s will help secure funding to expand the use of AI and wearable radios, and beat the disease. “Just a few years ago, if I had said at a meeting that we could bring X-rays everywhere that would be read by a machine without the use of radiologists, I would have been told to go write a novel of science fiction,” he smiles. str-ub/ger/emd
2023-11-25 20:21:08
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