Brossard, Quebec, March 25, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- DIAGNOS Inc. (DIAGNOS or the Corporation) (TSX Venture: ADK) (OTCQB: DGNOF), a leader in early detection of critical health issues through the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), announces that it is participating in the Call to Action initiative implemented by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. DIAGNOS has accessed a significant dataset with the objective of analysing these medical documents with its AI Medical Platform, called FLAIRE, in order to identify key factors that could assist in the battle against the Coronavirus.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the White House and a coalition of leading research groups have prepared the COVID-19 Open Research Dataset (CORD-19). CORD-19 is a resource of over 44,000 scholarly articles, including over 29,000 with full text, about COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, and related coronaviruses. This dataset is provided to the global research community to apply recent advances in natural language processing and other AI techniques to generate new insights in support of the ongoing fight against this infectious disease. There is a growing urgency for these approaches because of the rapid acceleration in new coronavirus literature, making it difficult for the medical research community to keep up.

Call to Action (from the White House)

The White House is issuing a call to action to the world's artificial intelligence experts to develop text and data mining tools that can help the medical community develop answers to high priority scientific questions. The CORD-19 dataset represents the most extensive machine-readable coronavirus literature collection available for data mining to date. This allows the worldwide AI research community the opportunity to apply text and data mining approaches to find answers to questions within, and connect insights across, this content in support of the ongoing COVID-19 response efforts worldwide.

Mr. Andr Larente, CEO of Diagnos stated: Diagnos AI platform has been built to address the complexity of multiple sources of data that includes text mining, data mining and medical imaging. The proprietary technology has been developed over a number of years in order to identify medical challenges, for example cardio vascular issues have resulted in new tests to address hypertensive patient complications and to predict a potential stroke. The intention of FLAIRE in response to the White House Call to Action is to assist in resolving some of the issues caused by the virus by analyzing the dataset made available by the US authorities.

The Standing Committee on Emerging Infectious Disease and 21st Century Health Threats of the US and the WHO identified 10 scientific questions that are vital to address this international crisis. These questions include studying the transmission and incubation of the virus, risk factors for getting the COVID-19, the origin of the virus, and the proper medical practice for treating this disease.

Mr. Francis Bellido, PhD in Medical Microbiology and board member at Diagnos added: One outcome that is particularly remarkable in the COVID-19 crisis is that the majority of the deceased victims had one or several pre-condition(s) before the infection struck such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity or other Cardio Vascular issues, which are the sweet spots for the Diagnos diagnostic assisted platform. We believe that this virus could further alter the cartography of the retina in such patients, and if confirmed, creating the possibility of an additional facet to our existing detection tool for our existing patients.

Dr. Hadi Chakor, Chief Medical Officer at Diagnos added: One of the treatments for COVID-19 is the use of chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine. The recommendations of the American Academy of Ophthalmology on the screening of chloroquine (CQ) and hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) are very clear after taking high doses and for a long period of use, a rigorous follow-up with patients is required. These conditions represent the most severe risks of developing morphological alterations in the retina after treatment with chloroquine. Also, previous studies demonstrate clearly that chloroquine disrupts lysosomal function in retinal neurons and RPE. Modern screening should be based on primary AI-based automatic screening tests to assess the fundus plus optical spectral coherence tomography (SD OCT) exams. These investigations should look beyond the central macula to provide objective screening and to detect subtle changes on the retinal membrane.

The Corporation is also announcing a correction to its press release dated March 9th, 2020: The number of common shares that Mr. Tristram Coffin would hold assuming the exercise of stock warrants should read 11,047,561 instead of 10,624,560.About DIAGNOS

DIAGNOS is a publicly-traded Canadian corporation with a mission of early detection of critical health issues through the use of its Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform FLAIRE. Diagnos can build application rapidly using the FLAIRE platform such as CARA (Computer Assisted Retina Analysis). CARA is an application that integrates with existing equipment (hardware and software) and processes at the point of care. CARAs Artificial Intelligence image enhancement algorithms make standard retinal images sharper, clearer and easier to read. CARA is a cost-effective tool for screening large numbers of patients in real-time and has been cleared for commercialization by several regulatory authorities such as Health Canada, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, European Union and other countries.

Additional information is available at http://www.diagnos.com and http://www.sedar.com.

This news release contains forward-looking information. There can be no assurance that forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in these statements. DIAGNOS disclaims any intention or obligation to publically update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. The forward-looking information contained in this news release is expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

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DIAGNOS Will Utilize its Artificial Intelligence Medical Platform FLAIRE in Response to the US White House - Call to Action to Analyse and Transform...