Joint bid to detect drug-resistant pathogens
Bumrungrad International Hospital is partnering with Biotia, a US health-tech company to pilot artificial intelligence (AI), sequencing-based technology to revolutionise pathogen and drug-resistance detection, the company’s chief executive officer and medical director Assoc Professor Dr Somsak Chaovisitsaree said.
He added that Bumrungrad and Biotia will develop technology to analyse, diagnose and treat cases involving drug-resistant pathogens. The two partners are starting with 1,000 samples, which will be collected, analysed and stored in the database at Bumrungrad International Hospital Clinical Laboratories.
In Thailand, it is estimated that there are 87,751 cases of antibiotic resistance each year, resulting in 38,481 deaths, which accounts for 40 per cent of all of patient deaths. They also require 3.24 more million days in hospital. Annual spending on anti-microbials usually lies between Bt2.539 billion and Bt6.084 billion and the economic impact of drug resistance is approximately Bt40 billion.
