With 80% of the global population at risk from one or more vector-borne diseases, such as malaria, tools like early warning systems can help the world prepare, plan for and respond to them.
Early warning systems are not new. But with climate change, there is an increased interest in these systems to predict and plan for disease outbreaks like malaria. Several experts fear climate change will increase malaria transmission. Increased rainfall can open up more breeding sites for mosquitoes, and warmer temperatures allow malaria parasites to complete their cycle faster.
But early warning systems face some challenges to expansion and adoption, such as lack of in-country digital infrastructure and insufficient evidence of impact on patient outcomes. Data sharing and scarce resources also pose challenges in rolling them out.