Biometrics fights against TB

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With an aim to eradicate TB, Operation Asha, a non-government organization in India that monitors Tuberculosis in Indian cities, is putting its hope on the technology that runs biometrics in order to keep track of people who have been infected by TB in the city of Jaipur.

Due to its consistent efforts, operation Asha has been named one of the thirty social enterprises to potentially receive $50,000 grants from the World Bank.

The biometrics attendance system is being used by this NGO in its bid to eradicate tuberculosis in the city which has about 217 per one lakh people afflicted by the disease.

As part of this ‘Operation Asha’ fingerprinting data is collected from patients and even potential patients with the help of councilors and by collecting fingerprint data from the patients during each visit, counselors at the centers are able to deliver personalized care to ensure that anyone infected is staying on their entire course of medication until they are completely free from tuberculosis.

In a country like India, where is it very difficult for the government agencies to put a tab on TB patients, this is proving to be quite an effective way towards fighting TB and winning the battle. For the past six decades, the Centre has been fighting against the infectious diseases but has been unable to eradicate it completely.

If a patient skips medicines or discontinues taking a complete TB course with an impression that he has become healthy, then the disease would become more difficult to curb. More importantly, such highly exposed person will spread the infection to other people quite easily.

If we look at the methodology involved in Biometrics, it consists of methods for uniquely recognizing humans based upon one or more intrinsic physical or behavioral traits. In computer science, in particular, biometrics is used as a form of identity access management and access control. It is also used to identify individuals in groups that are under surveillance.

The first time an individual uses a biometric system is called an enrollment. During the enrollment, biometric information from an individual is stored. In subsequent uses, biometric information is detected and compared with the information stored at the time of enrollment.
It is crucial that storage and retrieval of such systems themselves be secure if the biometric system is to be robust. The first block (sensor) is the interface between the real world and the system; it has to acquire all the necessary data. Most of the times it is an image acquisition system, but it can change according to the characteristics desired. The second block performs all the necessary pre-processing: it has to remove artifacts from the sensor, to enhance the input (e.g. removing background noise), to use some kind of normalization, etc. In the third block necessary features are extracted.

This step is an important step as the correct features need to be extracted in the optimal way. A vector of numbers or an image with particular properties is used to create a template. A template is a synthesis of the relevant characteristics extracted from the source. Elements of the biometric measurement that are not used in the comparison algorithm are discarded in the template to reduce the filesize and to protect the identity of the enrollee. This process is proving to be an excellent way to identify and monitor TB cases in the city of Jaipur.