Analysing call data: Hotline can forecast dengue outbreaks

A team of scientists, including one of Indian-origin, has developed a system that can forecast the outbreak of dengue fever as much as three weeks in advance by simply analysing the calling behaviour of patients to a public-health hotline, IANS reported on Monday. Lakshminarayanan Subramanian, professor at New York University said findings showed that the telephone-based disease surveillance system not only flagged an outbreak, but also made an accurate forecast of both the number of patients and their locations ahead of time. Umar Saif, Chairman of the Punjab IT Board which implemented the system in Pakistan said that the simple technique can save millions of lives in the developing world.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 12^th, 2016.