Artificial Intelligence system may help diagnose Zika

Washington: Scientists have developed an artificial intelligence system that can accurately diagnose Zika virus and several other viral, bacterial and even genetic diseases from the patient's blood. The platform developed by scientists at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil, can identify tens of thousands of molecules present in blood serum, with an artificial intelligence algorithm. "We used infection by Zika virus as a model to develop the platform and showed that in this case, diagnostic accuracy exceeded 95%. One of the main advantages is that the method doesn't lose sensitivity even if the virus mutates," said Rodrigo Ramos Catharino, principal investigator at UNICAMP. Another strength of the platform, he added, is the capacity to identify positive cases of Zika even in blood serum analysed 30 days after the start of infection, when the acute phase of the disease is over.