Researchers at Stellenbosch University’s (SU) recently received a donation worth around R11.75 million to assist with research on so-called “long Covid”. This was according to Prof Resia Pretorius, head of the department of physiological sciences at SU and lead researcher into long Covid-19.
Through the donation, Pretorias and a team of researchers have been granted access to an artificial intelligence (AI) platform, the Erasmus.AI platform, and to AI pipelines, for three years. This is according to Daniel Erasmus, founder of the Erasmus.AI search engine, based in the Netherlands.
“This [access] will allow us to conduct in-depth literature searches to gain deeper insights into physiological pathways that are influenced by the molecules we discover in the laboratory,” said Pretorius.
Prof Resia Pretorius, head of the department of physiological sciences at Stellenbosch University and lead researcher, explains the side effects and symptoms of long Covid-19.
The AI Assistant
The AI will allow researchers to “find links to assist us to understand disease pathways”, said Pretorius, via written correspondence with MatieMedia.
“We noticed the world leading research Resia Pretorius and her team were doing. We believe that [long term Covid] will dwarf acute Covid as a global health issue. The team’s work is leading and we are glad to be in a position to support it,” said Erasmus, via written correspondence with MatieMedia.
Erasmus.AI is a search engine that can analyse web-scale large bodies of unstructured text, process over 250 000 000 Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) per day, and translate from fifteen different languages, explained Erasmus.
Erasmus.AI search engine will assist the research team at Stellenbosch University (SU) as it will allow them to “deep dive into literature to find links to assist us to understand disease pathways”, according to Prof Resia Pretorius, head of the department of physiological sciences at SU and the lead researcher into long Covid-19. PHOTO: Hannah Theron
Finding answers to long Covid
“We desperately need diagnoses and treatment options for the millions of patients who have no hope of recovery,” said Pretorius. She suggested that the only solution is “well-planned collaborative research”.
The medium-term effects of Covid are only now emerging and the long-term effects are not well established yet and there are many unanswered questions, according to Dr Prashant Jeram, an occupational medical practitioner.
“Long Covid is a disease state occurring in some people after they have recovered from infectious Covid-19,” said Pretorius. Globally, over 100 million people are currently suffering from long Covid, she said.
“Long Covid entails not only the physical side but the mental side as well in terms of the symptoms that are experienced by people who were infected [with] Covid which still persists,” said Dr Prashant Jeram, an occupational medical practitioner. PHOTO: Hannah Theron