Satellite surveillance of mosquitoes needed to eradicate malaria, says Bill Gates
Tehran (KNA) - Increased investment in satellite surveillance of mosquitoes is needed to eradicate malaria, the Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates has said.
Real time surveillance data is necessary to tailor intervention packages to tackle the disease, he said at a landmark Malaria summit in London attended by business leaders, 16 heads of state and Prince Charles. Systems are needed that would "mix and match interventions in ways we've never done before" to fight the disease effectively, Mr Gates added.
"Malaria is a patchy disease," he said. "We need to understand the patches. This requires data down to the district level or even lower. Advances in satellite imaging and machine learning will make it much easier to build surveillance systems that operate at this kind of resolution."
Satellites and drones should be used to monitor mosquitoes to allow intervention packages to be tailored specifically, he added. There were 216 million cases of malaria worldwide and it killed 445,000 people in 2016, according to the most recent figures from the World Health Organisation.
Source: Independent