BY Oluseyi Awojulugbe
A newly-released white paper by Deloitte says 5G technology can be used to improve the processes of combating major public emergencies like the current COVID-19 pandemic.
The white paper, which was titled ‘Combating COVID-19 with 5G: Opportunities to improve public health systems’, was produced in collaboration with Huawei.
Huawei had collaborated with telecommunications operators in China to rapidly set up a specific 5G network dedicated to COVID-19 treatment hospitals.
Using examples of COVID-19 control and treatment measures in China, Deloitte identified challenges that face epidemic management in terms of monitoring, quarantine and treatment.
“Amongst its findings, the White Paper notes that the effectiveness of communication and data exchange has been essential in screening for infected individuals and controlling the outbreak. This by enabling thermal imaging, continuous remote monitoring and diagnoses during patient transfer,” Deloitte said.
“The research also highlighted the need to build and upgrade public health emergency response mechanisms, through which governments can make right decisions promptly and allocate resources more effectively.”
According to the white paper, 5G technology can be used to maintain effective communication among hospitals, and enable medical data and reference sharing between hospitals and scientific research institutions, especially “in the rapid increases in data volume and mounting demand for remote and HD-video based treatment” scenario.
In addition, the report showed that the use of 5G applications in the public health domain could inspire new business models in other sectors.
“It finds that as a result of 5G features such as high-speed connection, high reliability and low latency, the healthcare system has benefited from improved response times, patient monitoring, data collection and analytics, remote collaboration and resource allocation.
“It also sets an example for digitalised, data-driven and cloud-based innovative major public emergency response platforms.”
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is the first regulator to perform 5G trial in West Africa.
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