Huawei has donated high tech solutions to help South Africa’s fight against COVID-19.
Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize received the company’s donation of four Huawei Cloud, Artificial Intelligence (AI) diagnostic systems and four thermal scanning systems at the company’s Johannesburg headquarters.
The AI Cloud solution allows for fast, highly accurate diagnosis of coronavirus pneumonia by analysing CT scans of a patients’ lungs.
Huawei SA CEO Spawn Fan says, “Early detection helps to reduce the spread of the virus and to flatten the curve. Speeding up diagnosis time from hours to minutes with a 98% accuracy rate is a powerful tool for treating, monitoring and management of the disease.”
It is important to note that the solution leverages the Huawei Cloud that was built in South Africa.
This system has been implemented successfully in countries like UK, Mexico, Thailand and China.
Dr Mkhize said AI was an important diagnostic method that would boost his team’s efforts to successfully diagnose and treat infected patients.
He added; “Using ICT is another important weapon in our arsenal to fight against this virus. We are grateful to Huawei for sharing this innovative system. We look forward to exploring the capabilities of these solutions as we are constantly looking to capacitate our facilities with technology that improves efficiency and accuracy in our health care delivery.”
Huawei also donated four thermal scanning systems that can be used in high-density pedestrian area’s to conduct body temperature monitoring, which is a critical early detection method.
Yesterday South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Dr Naledi Pandor, also thanked Huawei, along with other Chinese companies and the Chinese government, for their donations and contribution’s to South Africa to aid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The crisis of COVID-19 presents a huge challenge to all humankind in a globalised world, the pandemic we face today can no longer be resolved by any individual country. Rather, we need to combat the virus by working hand in hand. At this moment, we can’t beat this virus unless we eliminate boundaries to resources and share our know-how and hard-learned lessons,” concluded Fan.
