Practice of big data and artificial intelligence in epidemic surveillance and containment.

ABSTRACT

Faced with the current time-sensitive COVID-19 pandemic, the overburdened healthcare systems resulted in a strong demand to develop newer methods to control the spread of the pandemic. Big data and artificial intelligence (AI) have been leveraged amid the COVID-19 pandemic; however, little is known about its use for supporting public health efforts. In epidemic surveillance and containment, efforts are needed to treat critical patients, track and manage the health status of residents, isolate suspected cases, develop vaccines and antiviral drugs. The applications of emerging practices of artificial intelligence and big data have become powerful "weapons" to fight against the pandemic and provide strong support in pandemic prevention and control, such as early warning, analysis and judgment, interruption and intervention of epidemic, to achieve goals of early detection, early report, early diagnosis, early isolation and early treatment, and these are the decisive factors to control the spread of the epidemic and reduce the mortality. This paper systematically summarizes the application of big data and AI in epidemic, and describes practical cases and challenges with emphasis in epidemic prevention and control. The included studies showed that big data and AI have the potential strength to fight against COVID-19. However, many of the proposed methods are not yet widely accepted. Thus, the most rewarding research will be on methods promising value beyond COVID-19. More efforts are needed for developing standardized reporting protocols or guidelines for practice.