New Delhi: When India speaks of AI in healthcare, it is not limited to sophisticated algorithms or the promise of precision alone, but is measured by the extent to which technology touches lives and addresses health inequities across the country, Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, Anupriya Patel, said on Tuesday.
Speaking in a session during the ‘India AI Impact Summit 2026’ at Bharat Mandapam here, she highlighted the transformative role of AI in advancing public health outcomes and strengthening India’s healthcare delivery systems.
Patel said that “AI for India, as our Prime Minister Narendra Modi envisions, is not merely Artificial Intelligence but All-Inclusive Intelligence.”
As India advances towards the vision of a Viksit Bharat by 2047, health forms one of the most critical pillars of development.
India’s vast and diverse population, the rural–urban divide, and the dual burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases present unique challenges.
In such a context, she underscored, technology — particularly AI — becomes an indispensable enabler.
“AI has been integrated across the entire continuum of healthcare—from disease surveillance and prevention to diagnosis and treatment,” said the minister.
The Media Disease Surveillance System, an AI-enabled tool that monitors disease trends in as many as 13 languages, generates real-time alerts, and strengthens outbreak preparedness.
This system, she said, showcases the power of AI in augmenting India’s disease control efforts and enhancing surveillance capacity.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has launched AI-based tools for genomic surveillance, capable of predicting potential zoonotic outbreaks even before transmission from animals to humans occurs. Such predictive capabilities, she emphasized, represent a paradigm shift in preventive public health.
The minister also highlighted the deployment of AI-enabled handheld X-ray machines and Computer-Aided Detection tools for tuberculosis (CA-TB), which have brought advanced diagnostics closer to communities.
These innovations have contributed to approximately 16 percent additional case detection in TB. Furthermore, AI-based tools predicting adverse TB treatment outcomes have helped achieve a 27 percent decline in negative treatment results, strengthening India’s fight against tuberculosis.
The government has actively worked towards building a strong AI ecosystem in healthcare, including the establishment of three Centres of Excellence for AI at AIIMS Delhi, PGIMER Chandigarh, and AIIMS Rishikesh to integrate world-class AI expertise into public healthcare delivery.
Artificial Intelligence is poised to become a transformative force in public health, provided it is deployed responsibly, ethically, and at scale, said experts at the session.
(IANS)
