AI is becoming a foundational technology across all industries.
It will also be useful for identifying and eradicating infectious diseases.
There are still not enough cases that have demonstrated clinical utility.


The spread of COVID-19 shows no signs of slowing down. Consequently, interest is growing in systems that enable the prevention, containment, and eradication of infectious diseases, as well as the cutting-edge technologies that support them.

AI technology has recently established itself as a foundational technology across all industries and holds the potential to be useful in infectious disease settings.

In July, ETRI published a report titled “Technical Standard Trends in Medical Artificial Intelligence for Responding to Infectious Disease Disasters.” The report examined cases of infectious disease disaster response utilizing AI technology, related technical standards, and research and development trends, and presented the elements necessary to utilize AI technology in the national infectious disease quarantine system.

◇ Places where AI technology is needed during an infectious disease outbreak

The report explained that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries around the world are facing the following challenges: ▲Understanding the transmission routes and current status of infectious diseases ▲Differentiating and quantitatively diagnosing new infectious diseases ▲Developing treatments for new infectious diseases ▲Minimizing the impact of infectious diseases on existing clinical settings.

Responding to infectious diseases must be swift, and so must the four tasks above. The report concludes that big data analysis is necessary to address these challenges, and that AI technology is crucial.

Infectious disease data is collected and accumulated in real time through various communication networks. AI technology is necessary to understand regional infectious disease trends and transmission routes, and to predict future situations.

AI technology can also aid in the diagnosis and development of treatments for emerging infectious diseases. It can also play a role in allocating limited medical resources.

What AI Technology Can Do During Quarantine

The report divided infectious disease prevention into four stages. The first is the prediction and prevention stage, where AI technology can be utilized for advance prediction and warning, as well as for supporting quarantine procedures for overseas arrivals.

The second stage is the emergency operations and response phase, where AI technology can be utilized for AI-based automated diagnosis support, unmanned emergency response, optimized management of medical resources, and status analysis and sharing.

The third stage is the infection spread prevention stage, where AI technology can be used for advance prediction and warning, automatic identification of suspected cases, contact tracing and monitoring, support for self-quarantine management, detection of social distancing, identification of risk factors, and prevention of the spread of fake news.

The fourth stage is the research and development stage for treatment and nursing support, where AI technology can be applied to AI-based new drug and vaccine research, remote patient monitoring, critical care nursing support, and patient risk prediction and alerts.

The report stated that many research and developments are underway in AI utilization cases for infectious disease response, and evaluated that the most active movements are in the following areas: △assistance in infectious disease diagnosis △remote patient monitoring and prognosis prediction △self-diagnosis testing and voice recognition △prediction and surveillance of diseases and disasters △contact tracing and monitoring △new drug development. The actual usability was also high.

In doing so, he pointed out the necessary steps for the above cases to lead to commercialization, including ▲development of medical devices equipped with AI technology, ▲establishment of a patient data collection/sharing system, and ▲prior work on data standardization.

◇ If AI technology is to be used to fight infectious diseases,

Global exchange and movement are essential to human survival. The report predicts that new infectious diseases similar to COVID-19 will continue to emerge in the future, and argues that research and development that considers the following factors is necessary to utilize AI technology to respond to infectious diseases.

First, the importance of policies for open data and its utilization is paramount. To facilitate the modeling, learning, and development of AI systems necessary for rapid response to urgent infectious disease disasters, a system must be established that allows high-quality data to be made publicly available and freely available.

Second, there is a need to create an open global repository for sharing anonymized clinical data, including medical images or patient histories. The repository should be designed to integrate and utilize data by institution, region, and country.

In addition, clinical protocols and data sharing architecture design for easy data sharing and utilization are needed, and a data governance framework must also be created.

Third, regulatory requirements and privacy protection mechanisms for the use of medical data must also be implemented. In particular, AI for clinical applications must demonstrate not only performance on test data sets but also effectiveness and safety when integrated into actual clinical workflows. Furthermore, all developed AI applications must undergo thorough consideration and evaluation to ensure compliance with ethical principles and avoid potential human rights violations.

Fourth, South Korea has demonstrated remarkable success in leveraging its ICT capabilities even amid the COVID-19 crisis. It is crucial to create more opportunities to apply AI technologies to these cases and experiences, share these experiences internationally, and establish a system that fosters international cooperation.

Fifth, and finally, studies that take into account the situations of various countries are also needed. Beyond the latest devices and cutting-edge technologies, consideration should also be given to the application of appropriate technologies that utilize limited resources and technologies in the context of Africa and developing countries.

The report emphasized that AI technology used to combat infectious diseases is merely medical AI technology that assists medical staff in ensuring that patients receive effective diagnosis and treatment, and that the focus should be on the medical field itself.

Although numerous studies have proven that AI technology can be applied in the medical field, it is still difficult to find examples of actual medical AI technology being used in clinical practice and bringing about meaningful improvements in diagnosis and treatment for patients.

He also advised that efforts are needed to rigorously verify whether medical AI models have robust predictive power and their clinical validity.