Palestinian Atef Shkokany works on his lap-top computer inside his house in the West Bank city of Ramallah, April 4, 2020. A Palestinian young man has succeeded in developing a computerized program for diagnosing cases infected with the novel coronavirus. (Photo by Nidal Eshtayeh/Xinhua)
by Sanaa Kamal
RAMALLAH, April 3 (Xinhua) -- A Palestinian young man has succeeded in developing a computerized program for diagnosing cases infected with the novel coronavirus.
The 24-year-old Atef Shkokany, who comes from the West Bank city of Ramallah, told Xinhua that the computer program could show the test result through regular X-ray and CT images in only a few seconds.
Shkokany said that he has succeeded in developing it through many experiments and the accuracy rate at the beginning of the experiment was 94 percent.
"I want to help the Palestinian authorities to discover the infected cases early," said Shkokany, adding that Palestine lacks the necessary equipment for examination.
Currently, the young man is working to increase the number of scans in the databases of cases infected with the virus. "After that, we can use the program for all cases, either infected or non-infected with the virus," he added.
Palestine recorded so far 161 coronavirus cases. The Palestinian Health Ministry complained about the lack of medical supplies as well as the equipment, calling on the donor countries to help it as soon as possible.
Osama Al-Najjar, director of the assistant professions in the Ministry of Health, told Xinhua that the program showed high accuracy in the test results.
Shkokany said he is happy to get the final approval from the Ministry of Health to use his program in some relevant authorities.
"I am going to launch a website for all specialists around the world to use my new computerized program," added Shkokany.
