Karnataka's disease surveillance platform can be a model for others: Rockefeller Foundation

In September, Health and Family Welfare Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao launched the Platform for Research, Integrated Surveillance and Management of Health (PRISM-H) for disease surveillance in Karnataka.

The platform, developed by IISc’s AI & Robotics Technology Park (ARTPARK), with support from US-based philanthropic organisation Rockefeller Foundation, amplifies the state’s dengue surveillance through an AI-based predictive model. 

In an interview with Navya P K of DH, Elizabeth Yee, executive VP, programs, and Dr Naveen Rao, senior VP, health, at Rockefeller Foundation, discuss the way forward. Excerpts:

Are you seeing results from the platform?

Yes. Instead of sending ASHAs and community workers everywhere for dengue surveillance, the health department is now able to deploy them in areas where cases are predicted to increase and manage the environment (source reduction) there. 

For example, today the dashboard showed a locality where cases are expected to increase in the next four weeks. This sub-district is at a completely different location from the sub-districts that currently have cases. So, it allows anticipating and putting resources in a place that has significant risk. 

If you wait for a case to be detected, you are probably already too late, because people will get diagnosed at a health centre only if they have access and can afford it. 

How did the project materialise? 

Over the past three years, our focus in India under public health has been to expand data-driven disease surveillance and decision-making under the stewardship of the principal scientific advisor for the government of India and department of biotechnology. 

At the tail-end of Covid pandemic, we asked how the capacity built then could be used going forward. That’s when we started working with ARTPARK as part of a research agenda with institutions around Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Delhi. 

Our board recently approved a five-year climate strategy in the context of climate change increasing the vulnerability of already-vulnerable populations. Climate-related health threats require us to create a new paradigm of administration, and our work with ARTPARK showcases what that can look like, with dengue as a starting use case. Dengue is a climate-sensitive infectious disease, and it’s going to escalate as weather patterns change.  

This platform can help the administration with early warning, prediction and detection of infectious, vector-borne and non-communicable diseases that are exacerbated by climate change.

What will be the focus areas in the next few years?

We are focusing mostly on urban areas now, because we know what the administration needs and what the systems look like. However, our state-level engagement tends to touch upon rural areas. 

In Karnataka, we started with a workshop to draw priorities from various officials in the government and then brought together a unique team from the government and private sectors. We will do similar workshops in other areas to understand their requirements, because they will have other diseases that they feel are more critical. But this model will work there.

Why pick Karnataka first?

We felt there was a chance of proving the concept here, along with political will. The common theme in our work globally is to use data to make better decisions. 

We are exploring possibilities of bringing some partners, from Brazil especially, to visit Bengaluru and learn from the model.

The predictive model requires multiple layers of data on rainfall, mobility, etc. How do you deal with gaps in government data? 

The more people understand the value and insights they get from data, the more they are willing to share it. We are in a much better position now than when we started.

Besides, globally there is a lack of funding for health, so the data also enables you to stimulate financing for health, because if you can’t measure, you can’t finance it.