Healthoptim: App to assess vulnerability of user to COVID-19

BENGALURU: Healthoptim, a mobile app that serves as a digital preventive healthcare platform, has introduced a new feature that measures the user’s vulnerability to Covid. While anyone exposed to SARS-CoV-2 will likely be infected, whether this infection remains asymptomatic or develops into a severe disease depends on a variety of factors, such as age, gender, and a range of comorbid conditions.

“HealthOptim uses its artificial intelligence algorithm to match the profile of the user with the clinical data of over eight lakh individuals from around the world to estimate the user’s risk for chronic lifestyle diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, chronic kidney disease, hypertension, cancer and even stress. Individual disease risk levels are then computed to calculate the user’s Covid Vulnerability Score, which is an estimate of the severity of the disease that will likely result if the user is exposed to the SARSCoV- 2 virus,” a company statement said.

“In the initial days of the Covid pandemic, the question in everyone’s minds was whether I will also get the infection. But today, when the virus is entrenched in our communities and infections continue to rise, we have to wonder how our body will respond if we are exposed to the virus. Will the infection be asymptomatic, mild, or severe,” said Dr Rajat Anand, Director, and co-creator of the app.

According to Dr Anand, the Covid Vulnerability Score can serve as a critical guide in deciding the level of caution each of us must exercise. Gopal Mishra, Head of Digital Marketing at HealthOptim, said, “The Covid Vulnerability Score is based on strong science. It was developed through a deep analysis of clinical data on contributions from different comorbidities to the severity of the Covid-19 disease.”