AI Can Transform Healthcare In Areas Lacking Specialists: Ex-WHO Deputy Director-General Soumya Swaminathan

Former Deputy Director-General of the World Health Organisation, Soumya Swaminathan, on Friday said artificial intelligence can have a significant positive impact on healthcare, especially in regions where specialist doctors are scarce.
She noted that in many parts of India and in regions such as Africa, there is a shortage of radiologists, psychiatrists and pathologists. Swaminathan said one of the simplest and most effective uses of AI is image and pattern recognition, which can help in reading X-rays and pathology slides, provided the algorithms are trained on high-quality datasets.
"AI can have a lot of very positive impact in healthcare, particularly since we know that we have a lot of places in India as well as in other parts of the world like Africa where we don't have specialists, you don't have radiologists, psychiatrists, pathologists. One very simple solution of AI is image recognition or pattern recognition. So, reading X-rays, reading pathology slides, those things can be done quite well, provided the algorithm is trained well on a good data set," Swaminathan told reporters.
She added that such applications are already being widely used and that many new AI-based healthcare solutions are emerging. However, she stressed the need for proper evaluation before large-scale adoption. Drawing a comparison with new drugs or vaccines, Swaminathan said every new AI product must undergo assessment for efficacy and safety before being scaled up and should be brought under a clear regulatory pathway.
"So those are kinds of things which are already being widely used. We are seeing a lot of new applications as well. What I would recommend is that, just like when we introduce a new drug or a vaccine, we do a clinical trial. We need to assess the efficacy and the safety of any new AI product before it is scaled up. That should be in the regulatory pathway," she added.
The India AI Impact Summit, the first global AI summit to be hosted in the Global South, reflects on the transformative potential of AI, aligning with the national vision of "Sarvajana Hitaya, Sarvajana Sukhaya" (welfare for all, happiness for all) and the global principle of AI for Humanity. This summit is part of an evolving international process aimed at strengthening global cooperation on the governance, safety, and societal impact of AI.
The India AI Impact Summit 2026 is guided by three Sutras or foundational pillars - People, Planet, and Progress. These sutras articulate the core principles for global cooperation on artificial intelligence. They aim to promote human-centric AI that safeguards rights and ensures equitable benefits across societies, environmentally sustainable advancement of AI, and inclusive economic and technological advancement.
PM Narendra Modi unveiled the MANAV Vision (Moral and Ethical Systems, Accountable Governance, National Sovereignty, Accessible and Inclusive, Valid and Legitimate).
Tata Group & OpenAI announced a partnership to build 100 MW of AI infrastructure in India, scalable to 1 GW.
The summit saw the launch of BharatGen Param2 (a 17-billion parameter model for 22 languages) and new large language models from Sarvam AI. The India AI Impact Expo was extended by one day, concluding on February 21, due to strong public interest.

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