The map produced by Google shows searches made by day and city since June 2015.
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So, Google and UNICEF are working together to build a platform to process data about the virus from different sources (such as weather and travel patterns) and visualize potential outbreaks.
As you may know, there’s this virus called Zika that is spreading through South America and some other countries.
That link is strong enough that Canada recently joined the list of countries urging women to delay pregnancy (in this case, only if they have travelled to a Zika-infected country).
“We hope these efforts are helpful in fighting this new public health emergency, and we will continue to do our part to help combat this outbreak”, Fuller said.
The company also announced it is working with YouTube creators in Latin America, including Sesame Street, to help raise awareness about Zika prevention through their channels.
Caryl M. Stern, President and CEO of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, said the Google grant would help UNICEF to reach 200 million people in the region who are either affected by or vulnerable to Zika with information on how they can protect themselves.
Chris Fabian, UNICEF Innovation Co-Lead, said the open source platform could be expanded for global use and employed in future disease outbreaks.
This is not the first time that Google has applied its experience analyzing large data sets to help health officials track the spread of a disease. It’s pretty mild on its own, but it’s got a terrible side effect for pregnant women: It’s linked to a birth defect known as microcephaly, which causes babies to be born with heads that are too small and brains that don’t grow normally. Outstandingly, in addition to Google helping UNICEF going through the data collected on previous Zika studies, it has also provided the foundation with $1 million grant to assure their efforts are well sustained. Google says it has seen a more than 3,000% increase in searches on the virus since November.
It appears as if the tech giant company had what it takes in order to take the investigation’s regarding the Zika virus to its conclusion.
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There are multiple projects now underway to fight the spread of the Zika: developing a more efficient test for the virus, creating a vaccine, determining the exact risk of microcephaly and Guillain-Barré, and improving vector control: avoiding and killing off the mosquitoes that spread the virus. Since then the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the virus a “global public health emergency”.
