Mumbai: BMC hands in 500 voice samples for COVID-19 app

The voice analysis app is a non-invasive test and is said to be less time-consuming than a swab test, such that being done here at the Jain Health Centre in Dadar West. Pic/Suresh Karkera

After working on a collection of voice samples for nearly three months, the civic body finally completed the submissions for the first phase of its pilot project, to detect COVID-19 through voice analysis, last week. The team working on the project at the NESCO centre at Goregaon has nearly completed the work on the second phase as well, and is now waiting to hear from the Israeli start-up that is working on the software.

Back in August, the civic body had started work on the project that involved submitting voice samples of 500 COVID-19 patients as part of the first phase and another 1,500 for the second. "We had earlier submitted the voice samples and the case reports of 360 patients. Now we have submitted the remaining 140 and are now waiting for the preliminary analysis report from the company. We expect to hear from them with the results by December 10," said Dr Neelam Andrade, dean of NESCO centre. Apart from COVID patients, the 500 samples also include 100 non-COVID patients.

She added that the team has completed the collection of over 4,000 voice samples so far since the procedure involves submitting a minimum of two samples per patient. "Within the next two weeks, we will submit another 1,500 case reports as part of phase II. We have been doing the work but will submit it only after we get their report," she said.

Also Read: COVID-19: Mandatory testing partially restored in Maharashtra

Use of AI

The software called Vocalis created by an Israeli start-up company, uses artificial intelligence as a COVID detection test. In order to implement it in India, the voice samples have been recorded in local languages including Marathi and Hindi. Once the algorithm for artificial intelligence (AI) is ready, another 1,500 samples will be cross-checked with the software to verify the findings with the RT-PCR results for accuracy. The voice analysis app is a non-invasive test and is said to be less time-consuming than a swab test.

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