Leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) Capabilities for COVID-19 Containment.

Area of Science:

• Infectious Diseases
• Public Health
• Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare

Background:

• Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), caused by SARS-CoV-2, presents a global health crisis due to rapid transmission and lack of specific treatments.
• The varying severity of COVID-19 symptoms and high mortality rates necessitate urgent technological interventions.
• Healthcare systems require advanced tools to manage the overwhelming challenges posed by the pandemic.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review the critical role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in addressing research challenges during the COVID-19 crisis.
• To present AI applications in surveillance, risk assessment, diagnosis, and drug discovery for COVID-19.
• To highlight the potential of AI in supporting healthcare professionals and mitigating the pandemic's impact.

Main Methods:

• Review of AI applications in various aspects of the COVID-19 response.
• Inclusion of a sample implementation of a probabilistic machine learning algorithm for individual risk assessment.
• Discussion of AI's role in surveillance, mortality prediction, diagnosis, prognosis, drug repurposing, protein structure discovery, and vaccine development.

Main Results:

• AI demonstrates significant potential in processing large datasets for rapid analysis and decision support.
• Machine learning algorithms can effectively assess individual risk levels for COVID-19.
• AI tools can assist in critical areas like disease surveillance, mortality prediction, and accelerating drug and vaccine discovery.

Conclusions:

• AI is indispensable for developing technological solutions to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
• AI applications can alleviate the burden on healthcare professionals and improve response strategies.
• Addressing implementation challenges is crucial for the widespread adoption of AI in managing public health crises.