We choose ... to fight malaria with AI and data
William Pan, Dr.P.H., a DGHI professor and environmental scientist, has figured out how to harness data to see into the future. For more than a decade, he’s been developing tools that use large data sets to assess and predict disease trends, including a system that has been deployed to forecast malaria outbreaks in the Amazon. Now, he’s made that system bigger and better — and it’s about to get its most important test.
In fall 2025, Panama and Honduras will become the first two countries to integrate the forecasting system into their national malaria control efforts. The countries’ health ministries will use the forecasts, which are based on AI-powered analysis of real-time climate, health and environmental data, to guide decisions about where to deploy malaria control efforts such as rapid testing and surveillance.
Developed with a grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Pan’s forecasting system may be a significant asset as Central American countries look to regain momentum in their malaria control efforts. Panama and Honduras are among nine countries across the region that have been working to eliminate the disease, but an unprecedented wave of migration triggered a massive surge in cases in Panama. Pan’s collaborators say the forecasts will be a key tool in bringing the resurgence back under control and ensuring it doesn’t creep any further.
“The ability to bring in climate information to help the Ministries of Health evaluate the impact of our interventions is huge,” says Justin Lana, Ph.D., a Duke alumnus and an epidemiologist with the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), which supports malaria control campaigns in several Central American countries. “Unless you’re able to account for these very complex climate relationships, you’re kind of in the dark about how impactful any particular intervention is.”
Read more about the 3,000 variables driving Pan’s system in our recent story about the project, which also includes work on the ground in Panama to track changes in malaria parasites and their mosquito hosts.
