South Africa’s health ministry has welcomed a donation of Artificial Intelligence and cloud solutions from Huawei.

South Africa’s health ministry has welcomed a donation of Artificial Intelligence and cloud solutions from Huawei that will be used to strengthen the country’s fight against Coronavirus (COVID-19).

In a statement released to the media, Huawei said the country’s Health Minister Zweli Mkhize received the company’s donation of four Huawei Cloud, AI diagnostic systems and four thermal scanning systems at the company’s Johannesburg headquarters.

The AI Cloud solution, which leverages the Huawei Cloud built in South Africa, is designed to analyse CT scans of a patient’s lungs to provide a fast, accurate diagnosis.

Minister Mkhize said AI was an important diagnostic method that would boost his team’s efforts to successfully diagnose and treat infected patients.

“Using ICT is another important weapon in our arsenal to fight against this virus. We are grateful to Huawei for sharing this innovative system. We look forward to exploring the capabilities of these solutions as we are constantly looking to capacitate our facilities with technology that improves efficiency and accuracy in our health care delivery.”

Huawei SA CEO Spawn Fan says, “Early detection helps to reduce the spread of the virus and to flattening the curve. Speeding up diagnosis time from hours to minutes with a 98% accuracy rate, is a powerful tool for treating, monitoring and management of the disease.”

The additional donation of four thermal scanning systems can be used in high density pedestrian areas to conduct body temperature monitoring, which is considered a critical early detection method.

South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Dr. Naledi Pandor, also thanked Huawei, along with other Chinese companies and the Chinese government, for their contribution.

Fan added: “The crisis of COVID-19 presents a huge challenge to all humankind in a globalised world, the pandemic we face today can no longer be resolved by any individual country. Rather, we need to combat the virus by working hand in hand. At this moment, we can’t beat this virus unless we eliminate boundaries to resources and share our know-how and hard-learned lessons.”

As of 16 April 2020 South Africa recorded 2,506 COVID-19 infections and 34 deaths.

Minister Mkhize issued a statement which reads: “It is with sadness that we report 7 new COVID-19 related deaths. Six of these deaths are from KwaZulu and one of them is from the Gauteng. We convey our condolences to the families and also appreciate the committed health workers who were treating these patients.”