AI tool flagged over 5,000 disease outbreaks in India
What's the story
India has deployed an artificial intelligence (AI) tool to enhance its health surveillance capabilities. The National Center for Disease Control (NCDC) launched the AI-powered system, "Health Sentinel," in 2022. A recent study has revealed that the innovative technology has issued real-time alerts for over 3,500 potential infectious disease outbreaks since its inception. The tool was developed by Wadhwani AI, a healthcare AI solutions provider based in New Delhi.
Enhanced detection
Efficiency in disease detection
The study revealed that the AI tool has reduced 98% of manual work, enabling faster outbreak detection and a proactive public health response. "Health Sentinel" works by scanning millions of news articles and media reports every day in 13 languages to identify unusual health events. These findings are then forwarded to authorities for further action if required. Since April 2022, it has processed over 300 million articles and identified over 95,000 unique health events across India.
Verification process
AI tool's human-in-the-loop approach
Despite its advanced capabilities, the "Health Sentinel" system maintains a "human-in-the-loop" approach. This means that epidemiologists are required to verify the information before it is passed on to state and district officials. Parag Govil, National Program Lead for Global Health Security at Wadhwani AI, said this AI solution has replaced the tedious task of manually sifting through newspapers, journals and reports for relevant articles.
Increased detection
Impact on health event detection
The introduction of the AI tool has led to a significant increase in detected health events. The study team noted a 150% increase in published health events since 2022, compared to earlier years of human-driven disease surveillance. In 2024 alone, the AI tool extracted 96% of the health events published by the national surveillance system with just 4% being identified through manual media scanning.