Brazil turns to AI to track ballooning COVID-19 cases

The Brazilian government will use robots powered with artificial intelligence (AI) to assist in the mapping and tracking of COVID-19 infections.

The announcement was made Tuesday by health minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta during the daily press conference to update the spread of the disease.

According to the minister, interactive voice response (IVR) robots will trigger automatic calls and carry out a sort of virtual consultation with as many as 125mn Brazilians.

Using AI, the robot will ask people about contacts with those infected, commuting on public transport and day-to-day care to understand how the outbreak is developing.

The system will then cross the information and, linked to big data, track “who is at risk, who had contact with whom, where that person is, what's his/her name, etc,” Mandetta said. 

The IVRs will also ask the person permission to make follow-up calls every eight, 10 or 12 hours.

The idea is that the system will allow authorities to obtain details of COVID-19 clusters on a district and municipality rather than just a state or city level. 

According to Mandetta, the calls began on Tuesday. “It’ll be a major project of biostatistics and social modelling,” the official said.

The system has been in development at the IT department of the health ministry for the past 20 days.

The minister did not give details on which databases the platform will rely, but the system will probably have to access displacement information embedded in people's smartphones and data from cellular antennas, to be provided by telcos.

The use of AI by the ministry to alleviate the public health system was planned since at least last year.