Karnataka launches AI- driven pods to treat COVID-19 patients

K.Sudhakar, Karnataka's medical education minister on Thursday launched Artificial Intelligence (AI) based healthcare pods to aid efforts in containment of contagious diseases like covid- 19.

The pods,which can accommodate upto nine beds, uses negative air pressure to help contain airborne diseases such as TB, Flu, and COVID-19,the ministers office said in a statement.

The government said that the pods has the potential to mitigate the inadequate healthcare infrastructure that has dented efforts to treat covid- 19 patients who require hospitalisation.

"The set-up of these pods requires minimum 500 square feet and these pods can be annexed to the existing hospital building, parking lot, or other open spaces in the hospital premises," according to statement from the minister's office.

Karnataka is one of the worst affected regions in the country with over 2.5 lakh cases and over 4200 fatalities so far.

The southern state confirmed 7385 new cases on Thursday that take the active cases to 82,149.

Bengaluru confirmed 2912



cases that takes the total to just under 1 lakh positives so far in India's technology capital.

The situation in other parts of the state continues to deteriorate as 20 out of the total 30 districts in Karnataka reported over 100 cases.

Sudhakar said that startups should focus on developing low-cost solutions to make health care more accessible and affordable.

The pods were launched by Vevra, an architecture firm along with the Portugal IoT (Internet of Things ) firm InnoWave Group to help treat and to prevent the spread of contagious diseases.

The pods can accommodate upto nine beds.

" This project consists of a set of movable capsules that aims to efficiently assist in the infrastructure of local/private/government hospitals across India," the minister's office said in its statement.

The pods come with a provision for oxygen supply, analyse and is integrated with a device to monitor oxygen supply pressure and to measure the oxygen concentration delivered by ventilators or breathing systems along with a failure alarm system.