Minister of Health and Welfare Park Neung-hoo attended a video conference with his counterparts from 12 countries hosted by the United Kingdom on Tuesday, sharing Korea’s experiences of using digital technology in response to Covid-19.

Minister Park introduced Korea’s creative and innovative digital technologies used for preventing the Covid-19 spread, including diagnosis, epidemiological investigation, treatment, and quarantine.

Park explained that his country’s concentration of medical resources on the rapid classification of severe patients by using chest artificial intelligence-based X-ray and CT imaging analysis helped to lower the fatality of confirmed patients.

He noted that Korea is operating an “epidemiological investigation support system” by grafting digital technology to make rapid and precise surveys possible. The system rapidly identifies the path of the confirmed patient through a real-time analysis of the data. It locates the infectious hotspot through spatio-temporal analysis of where the patients moved around.

Park said Korea is also using AI for data analysis for discovering treatments and promising vaccine candidate substances.

He commented on Korea’s extensive use of digital technology in self-diagnosis applications, text messages for emergency disasters, websites with information on masks, and pan-ministerial video conferences.

“I hope this meeting will serve as an occasion to unite with one another in a spirit of mutual trust and tolerance in various fields as well as digital technology,” Park said upon closing the meeting. “Only global solidarity and cooperation can magnify our hope in the post-coronavirus era.”