Praxis of Technology and Tools in COVID-19 Response

Abstract

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has affected around forty million people worldwide and causing over a million deaths. Since no treatment guideline is considered the most efficient, and with no vaccine approved for prophylaxis, currently the COVID-19 response demands efficient use of available technology and tools in medical field for controlling the disease. The knowledge and experience gained from the epidemics of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), Ebola, and Zika virus play a pivotal role in this pandemic response. The required technologies and tools are adapted from the existing technologies and are modified to serve the purpose of COVID-19 response which is applied in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of Coronavirus infection. The technologies applied at the prevention stage aims at limiting the spread of infection by using personal protective equipment, contact-tracing, and modelling. At the stage of diagnosis, technologies are used efficiently and the correct diagnosis of infected cases is done by molecular, immunological testing and radiological imaging. Artificial-Intelligence is employed in building applications that use the available information and radio-images to aid in differential diagnosis of Coronavirus infection. The treatment in COVID-19 incorporates technology in both in-patient and remote care of the cases. Though the COVID-19 response strategy differs from country to country, it is devised based on the recommendations made by the international health authorities such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention of the United States (NCDCP-US). The controlling of the pandemic depends on the collective effort of all nations which rest on efficient scientific communication and in the advancement of the medical field.