Malaria No More, The Weather Company Co-Initiative at Odisha

Malaria No More India, a non-governmental organization operating in India, and IBM and its subsidiary The Weather Company work together to improve health and accelerate India’s progress against deadly mosquito-borne diseases We announced the “Forecasting Healthy Futures” initiative, which aims to:

Malaria No More (MNM) envisions a world free of death from mosquito bites, working with national partners to mobilize the necessary political will, funding and innovation by 2030. We support India’s efforts to eradicate malaria. According to India Country Director Sanjeev Gaikwad and Indian Business Leader IBM Business The Weather Company Himanshu Goyal, the Global Initiative will initially focus on Odisha.

Leverage technology and data

This initiative leverages technology and weather data to target effective health interventions in the face of changing weather patterns and increasing frequency of extreme weather events. Mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, chikungunya fever, yellow fever, and deer are major global health problems affecting 340 million people each year, with the most marginalized people in the world. I am affected by imbalance.

This program, convened by MNM, develops strategies and policies that make use of meteorological data to improve health and improve global health, as well as the global health community that gathers to accelerate progress against malaria and other deadly mosquito-borne diseases. It features a unique group of technology and public sector partners. With meteorological data, governments and partners can turn weather obstacles into opportunities.

Forecasting Healthy Futures was founded globally with seed funding from Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Court’s Global Health Initiative, Reaching the Last Mile. In addition, PATH supports the development and integration of critical data systems and dashboards, enabling decision making. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation brings program and policy expertise. The Tableau Foundation offers additional financial support, software licensing and training.

Model country Odisha

According to Guywad, Orissa has shown tremendous progress in timing interventions in seasonality, and by proactively preparing for extreme weather events, she is mitigating the effects of the outbreak of the usual illness. “Odisha’s innovative testing and treatment campaign shows the power of timing and the subject of regular interventions for seasonal events such as the arrival of the monsoon, and the state government struck the state in 2019. We have succeeded in preventing the outbreak of disease following cyclone fanni,” he added.

Himanshu Goyal, India Business Leader of The Weather Company of IBM Business, said weather has had a strong impact on mosquito activity, as evidenced by The Weather Channel’s Mosquito Index, which in turn was responsible for the prevalence of malaria. Other deadly mosquito-borne diseases. Stopping the spread of diseases like malaria becomes even more important as the Covid-19 pandemic strains our health care infrastructure.

“The ongoing monsoon season is expected to remain moist at 108% of average rainfall, so we monitor malaria closely and provide deep insights to help stakeholders make better decisions. Preparing a system to produce is essential, so predicting healthy future initiatives is a great example of using technology and weather data for society and for the healthcare, pharmaceutical and other industries. It demonstrates the potential for profit,” Goyal added.

Strengthen data system and strategy

Monahamami, director of strategy for the Abu Dhabi Prince Court, said: “To tackle mosquito-borne diseases quickly, we need to focus on innovations that take an interdisciplinary approach and tap into those intersections. You can incorporate your voice into your conversation.”

To help improve public health, initiative partners enhance data systems and strategies by integrating the microclimate and mosquito population datasets with existing disease risk, intervention coverage, supply chain, and epidemiology datasets. To do. The dashboard and use cases will help Odisha inform the malaria intervention strategy for next year.

Village level intervention

Various partners work closely with national and state vector-borne disease control programs in Odisha and other malaria-affected regions around the world to identify research needs for the impact of changing weather patterns. I will.

This initiative is based on MNM India’s ability to work with the government to scale Odisha’s success over the past few years with weather-optimized innovative malaria intervention strategies at the village level. Until recently, Orissa had the highest malaria burden in India. The state has reduced the number of malaria cases by 90% in the last three years.