AI for health. Mathematical modeling of malaria in Wolaita Zone, Ethiopia.

Computer scientist Fetenech Meskele Ganebo, dean at the School of Informatics, Wolaita Sodo University, Ethiopia, is using artificial intelligence to predict how malaria spreads through Ethiopian communities.
Ganebo has visited the University of Trieste from 15 January to 15 April 2024 under a TWAS-SISSA-Lincei Research Cooperation Visits Programme fellowship. She wants to exploit the power of machine learning approaches, to elaborate algorithms that predict how malaria may affect the Ethiopian population according to climatic conditions and demographic situation.
Once the algorithms are fine-tuned, she will use them to investigate the combined effect of risk factors like temperature, altitude, malaria vector, and the population health status. This should allow her work to describe which malaria patterns lead more easily to death, providing health operators and policy-makers with predictive and more effective tools.
The TWAS-SISSA-Lincei Research Cooperation Visits Programme supports early-career researchers in the UN-identified Least Developed Countries on projects that contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
It offers opportunities for training and collaboration in scientific institutions of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia Scientific Innovation System (Sis FVG) in Italy. It is supported by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MAECI) and the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS).