Google said it would collaborate alongside UNICEF in order to determine how to map and anticipate the virus.
The Zika virus is spreading at an alarming rate across South America and beyond. As a result, Google announced a new proposal to help fight the virus as the company counts with technology resources that could be useful for researchers.
The epidemic was declared to be a global emergency by the World Health Organization several weeks ago. By having Google’s vast processing capacity and many other technological advantages, researchers would have a better shot at finding the reason for the Zika virus widespread.
It would also allow scientists trying to develop a successful treatment for the disease to better understand the disease in order to figure out a way to stop the spread of the virus. The aim of the partnership between Unicef and Google is to get ahead of the Zika virus before it gets through to more locations in order to try and stop it while it’s still possible.
“As a company whose mission is helping people find information, with a lot of experience in analyzing large sets of data, we’re in a good position to help – at scale and at speed,” said a post from Google blog announcing the initiative. “So today we have Google engineers working with UNICEF to analyze data to determine how to map and anticipate the virus.”
How a search engine can help prevent disease
Google has also updated its products to make information about the Zika virus more accessible, according to the announcement posted on Google’s blog. 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.
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. Thanks to Google, engineers will be able to gather data about the weather and travel patterns in order to create an idea about the disease’s next stop.
After the data has been collected it will be passed on to Unicef, governments, and other pertinent organizations, where it can be used to decide where to focus the precious time and limited resources. According to a Google report, the Zika virus has experienced a 3,000 percent increase in global search since the virus reached Latin America four months ago.
Source: WIRED