IBM helps doctors deal with Zika and Dengue fever pathogens

IBM will help combat dangerous diseases like Dengue fever and Zika virus to doctors in countries where these diseases are common. It is mainly about Taiwan and Panama. There is still no reliable vaccine against these diseases, although there has been talk of the need for its creation for a long time. Therefore, one of the most effective methods of control is to reduce the population of mosquito vectors of the pathogen Dengue and Zika. A joint project by IBM and organizations from Panama and Taiwan to explore this issue is being implemented as part of the IBM Health Corps Initiative .

Taiwan's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with support from IBM experts, is working on computer models that can be useful in predicting the spread of the disease. Dengue fever is an acute vector-borne viral disease. It occurs with fever, intoxication, myalgia, arthralgia, rash and swollen lymph nodes. With some variants of dengue fever, hemorrhagic syndrome develops.

This disease is typical of the tropics, and without proper treatment for Dengue fever, a fatal outcome is possible. Infection is transmitted by mosquitoes. Over the past 50 years, the number of people with Dengue has increased many times over. From 2003 to 2013, there were no more than 2,000 Dengue patients per year in Taiwan. Over the past few years, the number of cases of Dengue disease per year has increased to several tens of thousands.

One strategy to fight the Dengue virus in Taiwan is to use the Wolbachium bacteria. They complicate the process of virus transmission by mosquitoes. IBM has created several computer models that predict the influence of the Wolbachia on the development of the mosquito population and the number of Dengue diseases. In addition, IBM experts created computer models that check the correlation of various factors, which at first glance are unrelated.

For example, this is a comparison of the level of education of rural residents with the number of eggs laid by mosquitoes in such regions. The correlation of temperature and the number of mosquito larvae per unit area of ​​the water surface is also checked. As a result, project participants hope to receive detailed information that helps fight the disease.

According to the head of the Taiwan Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, collaboration with IBM has helped Taiwanese physicians and other specialties make great progress in assessing the threat. Doctors believe that the data obtained through computer models will help fight Dengue more efficiently.



As for Panama, here the work of IBM has just begun. Together with the Gorgas Memorial Institute, the company's specialists created a system for monitoring the spread of the disease. It uses a special application, geographic information, information about the incidence of citizens of Panama. Now the government plans to launch a test use of the application in three regions over the next six months. The project will work at full capacity in April 2018.

“This tool allows you to accurately monitor the spread of disease vectors, which opens up the possibility of a more rapid response from physicians,” says Nestor Sosa, head of the Gorgas Institute.