JAKARTA: Indonesia’s National Research and Innovation Agency is developing an artificial intelligence-powered system to help diagnose malaria under the country’s efforts to eliminate the disease by 2030.

Indonesia recorded over half a million malaria cases in 2024, but due to the lack of testing, the World Health Organization estimates that the actual number was at least twice higher.

“Our main goal is to create a computer-aided diagnosis system that can automatically recognize malaria status from blood smear images,” Anto Satriyo Nugroho, head of AI and cyber security at Indonesia’s national research agency, or BRIN, said in a statement.

Such a system would speed up confirmation of malaria, which to date is mostly done through microscopic examination.

“We are optimistic that sustainable AI research and development will create an important tool for diagnosis that will contribute significantly to eliminating malaria in Indonesia,” Nugroho added.

AI applications are rapidly gaining in popularity, including in medical care to improve disease diagnosis, treatment selection and clinical laboratory testing.

In 2020, a study published in Nature showed researchers from Google Health, and universities in the US and UK, reporting on an AI model that reads mammograms with fewer false positives and false negatives than human experts.

That algorithm has since been released for commercial use globally.

In Indonesia, BRIN researchers have been working with various local and foreign universities, the WHO as well as other UN agencies to speed up the country’s efforts in eliminating malaria.

An AI-powered system also opens up possibilities for remote diagnostics, which would enable healthcare workers to reach and assess patients in outlying areas.

Malaria is endemic in eastern parts of Indonesia, with around 90 percent of cases reported from the easternmost province of Papua, where healthcare access remains low due to challenging terrain and limited resources. 

“With the massive potential to increase accuracy in diagnosis and improve efficiency in healthcare services in endemic areas, BRIN is optimistic that AI technology will become a strategic partner in managing malaria cases nationally,” BRIN stated.

“AI cannot work on its own. Collaboration between tech experts and biomedical researchers is an absolute requirement for this technology to be reliable.”