The Institute of Engineering and Technology, a professional engineering organization, has launched a digital platform to track vector-borne diseases in India.
Called Social Analytics for Rapid Health Transformation for India (SARTHI), the platform uses publicly available data to track mentions of dengue, malaria and chikungunya.
It was developed in partnership with Siemens Healthineers India, the Center for Health Research and Innovation and Paris-based IT company Capgemini.
HOW IT WORKS
SARTHI takes information that is publicly available on digital channels such as online news, forums, blogs and social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to review and track mentions of said diseases. . It looks at these detailed data to track and trace them to county and street locations.
The platform offers different ways of presenting data: map view, trend view and table view with advanced filters. It also displays macro and micro information about each disease being tracked.
WHY IT IMPORTANT
Project SARTHI is assisting the Indian government in its national epidemic surveillance efforts. Funded through the CSR project of Siemens Healthineers India, this initiative lays the groundwork for the creation of a disease outbreak prediction model.
It started with the realization that a “significant” amount of non-personal data is available through online open-source platforms, which can be used as an indicator of disease. “Using user-generated data available in the public domain, centralized analysis and accurate prediction can be made to prevent outbreaks in the country,” the IET said.
TREND TO BIGGER
India’s $78 million national disease surveillance program is currently running on decentralized lab data. The IET noted that the program still has potential for improvement through real-time monitoring and disease outbreak prediction.
Last year, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare launched an upgraded version of The Integrated Health Information Platform, now provides consolidated, real-time data from public and private healthcare facilities. It can also track 33 diseases today from 18 diseases before.
ON PROFILE
“Through this project, we hope to assist the Indian government in its epidemic prevention and control efforts. The project has potential for nationwide adoption and it also helps India to achieve this. [its] Shekhar Sanyal, director and country head of IET India, said the Sustainable Development Goals on Health and Happiness and Reducing Inequality.
Dr Vikram Venkateswaran of the Healthcare Working Group at the IET Future Technologies Council said the SARTHI prototype is just the beginning. He said the partnership will also develop a predictive model that helps the country “proactively move healthcare resources and infrastructure in response to outbreaks.”
