Mumbai: At two of the city’s biggest Ganpati venues, devotees are being offered an unusual diabetes screening — instead of a needle prick, a camera is held in front of the eye to capture an image of the retina and artificial intelligence (AI) estimates their HbA1c level in about two minutes.
Over 11,000 Mumbaikars have already had their eye-diabetes screening in this manner at 10-day medical camps, organised by Eyebetes Foundation and Forus Healthcare, at Siddhivinayak Temple and GSB Seva Mandal at King’s Circle. Computation of the first 5,000 devotees shows that 39.7% of them had abnormal HbA1c results, indicating diabetes.
“This technology, along with AI, is being for the first time for a screening in India,” said Dr Nishant Kumar of Eyebetes Foundation. Studies done in other countries such as China show that the fundus camera-AI tool helps in early detection of diabetic retinopathy, a cause of blindness in patients with diabetes.
Dr Kumar said the team had initially trained the AI model using international datasets and subsequently refined it with Indian data. Over 30,000 people screened during the Maha Kumbh were included in this effort. The team expects to collect another 15,000-20,000 retinal images during the Ganpati screenings.
Kumar said the technology could help people who are reluctant or unable to undergo a blood test. India is the world capital for diabetes, with an estimated 150 million diabetics; in other words, almost one in every eight adult Indians is a diabetic and either undiagnosed or poorly controlled.
