AI to Detect Tuberculosis

The lung disease tuberculosis is still one of the world's top ten causes of death. And while it's completely treatable, patients need constant monitoring to make sure the treatment is working. The monitoring is fairly labour-intensive: it requires taking a sample of phlegm and counting the bacteria inside by eye under a microscope. It's a treatment bottleneck. But now, some engineers from Cambridge Consultants have been developing a technology to get rid of that bottleneck using AI - as Phil Sansom found out from developer Matthew Murchie... Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists