Fever is a common symptom of several infectious diseases, such as COVID-19 [1]. With the lack of sufficient diagnostics, thermal cameras can be used to detect outbreaks of Sars-CoV-2 infections in Brazil [2, 3]. With the help of artificial intelligence, BIOT can make this job more accurate, secure and highly integrated.
The motivation:
Brazil already has almost 500 thousand individuals contaminated by the virus Sars-CoV-2 [4]. This picture gets worse with the gradual reduction of social isolation policies. Nevertheless, the authorities already recognize that the number of diagnostics performed is insufficient to monitor the progress of the pandemic in Brazil [5]. With this lack of diagnostics, controlling the outbreaks of COVID-19 and preserving people's lives becomes an even more difficult task [6].
The BIOT is a system thought by the United Cheese Bread team that integrates thermal cameras and artificial intelligence. Our thermal cameras identify only the body temperature and do not use facial recognition or GPS, preserving people's privacy. The data generated by the BIOT can be used to identify contamination hotspots and assist in decision making when diagnoses are not sufficient.
Why is people's temperatures so important?
Fever is also a good parameter to search in local outbreaks, such as those occurring in prisons, where there is a higher rate of infectious diseases such as Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C and H1N1, or in schools, where upper airway and gastrointestinal infections are more frequent.
Project architecture:
Initially it is necessary to choose the strategic places of the city (preferably with large flow of people) where you want to monitor. Then, based on the desired locations, one of the two types of monitors is used:
When starting its operation, BIOT can provide data in real time while respecting the privacy of individuals. The BIOT system interface can be visualized in the following link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Rb_MXHFw4byMsRMqExmTXQZ6ZTBD5jUq/view
The data that will be obtained:
With the monitoring of the BIOT system, it is possible to obtain data and create estimates like:
Through these data it is possible to verify the places with peaks in the number of individuals with fever. Thus, the authorities can monitorate and be alert with possible outbreaks of infection.
How to maintain people's privacy?
To maintain people's privacy, we choose not to do facial recognition. The artificial intelligence used in BIOT will recognize who is a person and will determine his/her body temperature, so that only the temperature is saved in the database. Therefore, all monitoring data saved in the database is anonymous and it is impossible to track specific people.
Use case:
The city of São Paulo has more than 12 million inhabitants, being the most populous city in Brazil [10]. The subway and train lines of the city of São Paulo transport about 7 million people a day [11]. Once installed in São Paulo's subways and trains, the BIOT system would be able to monitor the body temperature of a large portion of the population daily.
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9. Novel Swine-Origin Influenza A (H1N1) Virus Investigation Team, Dawood FS, Jain S, et al. Emergence of a novel swine-origin influenza A (H1N1) virus in humans [published correction appears in N Engl J Med. 2009 Jul 2;361(1):102]. N Engl J Med. 2009;360(25):2605‐2615. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa0903810
10. Aos 466 anos, São Paulo tem 11,8 milhões de habitantes. Agência Brasil. Available in: https://noticias.r7.com/sao-paulo/aos-466-anos-sao-paulo-tem-118-milhoes-de-habitantes-20012020 Access in: 05/30/2020.
11. CPTM e Metrô: novas estações e 7,8 milhões de usuários por dia. Portal do Governo. Available in: https://www.saopaulo.sp.gov.br/ultimas-noticias/cptm-e-metro-novas-estacoes-e-transporte-de-78-milhoes-de-pessoas-por-dia/ . Access in: 05/30/2020.