Poorva Chavan
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Written By: Poorva Chavan | Updated : March 3, 2016 6:21 PM IST
The Zika virus has affected over 34 countries in Latin America and is believed to be spreading rapidly. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared Zika as a public health emergency of international concern and has warned people against travelling to the affected areas. Read: Is India at risk of Zika? What are its symptoms? How to prevent it and more
To prevent the spread of the virus, Google has extended its support to UNICEF. According to their official blog, Google engineers are working with UNICEF to analyse the available data to decide how to map the spread of the virus. A team of engineers, designers and data scientists will build a platform to process data from different sources such as weather and travel patterns to be able to predict potential outbreaks. This platform will help UNICEF, governments and NGOS to decide where to focus their resources and time. This platform will also be used for predicting any other emergencies in the future.
The blog also says Google will try to update a few of their products to make Zika information more accessible. They have made information about the disease such as its symptoms, treatment and public health alerts available in 16 different languages across the globe. Here's how you can prevent Zika.
They are also providing UNICEF with a grant of $ 1 million to help them with the ground work. This grant will be used by UNICEF to spread awareness, reduce mosquito populations, develop vaccines and diagnostic tools and work with governments to curb the spread of Zika.
Image sopurce: Shutterstock
