Despite the fact that the Covid-19 pandemic appears to be under control, suspicions of another mutation, followed by a new wave, remain. Scientists have developed a smartphone application to recognize whether you have been infected with the coronavirus to make its detection easier.
Scientists have created the ResApp, an app that analyses the sounds of your cough using machine learning. During testing, the app properly identified Covid-19 in 92% of patients who had the illness.
Professor Catherine Bennett, a member of ResApp’s Covid-19 Scientific Advisory Board, said that the sheer magnitude of the pandemic and the likely transition to an endemic illness means people need more scalable diagnostic techniques to balance the current over-reliance on quick antigen and PCR test methods.
ResApp detects key signatures in coughs using machine learning. The developer enrolled 741 patients in the United States and India to test it, including 446 with Covid-19. The participants filled surveys forms, listing out their symptoms and coughed into a smartphone that had the software integrated in it. The app detected Covid-19 in 92% of those who had the illness, according to the findings.
The researchers, in follow-up tests, used coughs from 1,007 patients with different respiratory illnesses, such as asthma, pneumonia, and respiratory tract infections, to see if the app is specific to Covid-19. The software was able to detect COVID-19 with 90% specificity, according to the findings.
The software will be utilized in circumstances where frequent Covid-19 testing is essential, according to the developers. This is true in a variety of circumstances, including travel, sports, entertainment, and healthcare.
According to Tony Keating, CEO and Managing Director of ResApp, the company has plans to speed up commercialization by immediately engaging with regulators around the world, and has already started talking to global health and technology businesses about bringing this product to market. The findings have raised the company’s confidence in developing COVID-19 patient care and monitoring tools, as well as furthering the ongoing research into long-term COVID.
The software has already piqued the interest of pharmaceutical corporations. Pfizer has made an offer to buy ResApp for $0.115 per share in cash, reflecting a total equity value of $74.3 million.
