How Google Is Using Machine Learning to Fight Malaria

Tuesday is World Malaria Day. The global health community and a coalition of public-private initiatives has successfully begun taming the scourge, with a 21% decrease in its global incidence between 2010 and 2015; still, there were 212 million malaria cases worldwide and the mortality rate from the disease was 29% in 2015, according to the latest World Health Organization (WHO) figures. One key tactic for fighting infectious diseases like malaria is to pinpoint exactly where they're spreading in order to stop them in their tracks. This way, preventive measures like mosquito control and the deployment of treatment resources can be better targeted. Google, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) have banded together with academic and public health partners with this very goal in mind--and are harnessing machine learning through the Google Earth Engine to accomplish it. The organizations are taking part in a Malaria Elimination Initiative effort called project DiSARM which will be piloted in Swaziland and Zimbabwe and uses the Google Earth Engine to map malaria.