The India Meteorological Department (IMD) and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) on Monday, 14 June, partnered with Malaria No More, a non-governmental organization, to launch an expert committee that will explore and advance climate-based solutions for eliminating malaria in India.
"We are excited to identify a new, multidisciplinary application for our high-quality climate data services. Malaria is one of India's most pressing health concerns. By combining meteorological information with the information from the health sector, we can examine micro-trends and predict malaria patterns, and accelerate our national progress towards its elimination. The Interagency Expert Committee announced today will function as a highly effective platform to accomplish this objective," said Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, Director General of Meteorology, IMD, Government of India, in a statement.
The ICMR will provide the scientific rigour quintessential to develop robust and scalable use cases to combat the vector borne diseases.
"Vector borne diseases like Malaria are priority targets for action in the health-climate agenda. The relations between these disease and the climate variables have been extensively studied in the past, and it is time to apply these evidences to design programmatic solutions to accelerate India's progress against these diseases," he added.
The IEC's launch is part of a global initiative - Forecasting Healthy Futures - to develop weather data-informed strategies and policies to improve health outcomes and accelerate progress against malaria and other deadly mosquito-borne diseases.
The IEC will focus on improving models like the one Malaria No More developed in Odisha state, which uses a multi-stakeholders and interdisciplinary approach to identify and prioritize areas of scalable and sustainable impact to improve malaria control and prevention.
The forecasting model uses advanced weather data, health information, and deep learning algorithms, and produces practical visualization outputs for local decision-making in the pilot districts of Koraput and Malkangiri in Odisha.
(This story was published from a syndicated feed. Only the headline and picture has been edited by FIT)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)
Published: undefined