By Alicia Buller

DUBAI -- Robots are coming to the rescue across the world as the coronavirus pandemic continues to threaten the lives of those on the medical front line.

In China, engineers have designed a remote-controlled robot that can take mouth swabs to test for the virus, perform ultrasound scans and listen to organs with a stethoscope.

Stationed by the bedside, they can provide an instant video link between patients and the nursing staff, assistants, and doctors.

Robots can complete routine tasks, like checking respiration, oxygenation, and blood pressure, and updating observations and patient records.

In Italy, a small, smiley-faced robot called Tommy is one of six helping human doctors and nurses care for coronavirus patients at the Circolo Hospital in Varese, a city in the northern Lombardy region that is the epicenter of the outbreak in Italy.

The robots are wheeled into rooms and left by a patient's bedside so doctors can look after others who are in more serious conditions.

Robots like Tommy can monitor routine health indicators to give a crucial picture of patients’ health conditions.

Most importantly, Tommy and his high-tech comrades allow the hospital to limit the amount of direct contact doctors and nurses have with patients, thus reducing the risk of infection.

More than 4,000 Italian health workers have contracted the virus treating victims, and 66 doctors have died.

The shortage of masks and personal protective equipment has been one of the biggest problems dogging the national health system since the contagion surfaced at the end of February.

Robots can be used behind the scenes as well, delivering meals to patients, removing soiled linens, monitoring medical inventory, and distributing medical supplies. They can even serve as automatic room sanitizers when equipped with UV-C sterilising lights.

According to Dr. Wendy L. Schultz, director at UK-based Infinite Futures, not all robots are hardware either.

“Software ‘bots’ can assist nurses and health administrators in administrative tasks, such as updating patient records. Machine learning can assist in analyzing massive public health data sets for patterns that might assist in developing vaccines and treatments,” she told Al Arabiya English.

Schultz said the world will see a push toward automated nurses as the countries battle COVID-19, but the technology is still in its early stages. -- Al Arabiya English