Integrating climate change and geospatial analytics into next generation surveillance of epidemic prone disease in Ghana

This project seeks to address the high burden of meningitis and yellow fever in Ghana by developing climate-sensitive risk maps and geospatial early warning systems to enhance disease surveillance, diagnosis, and resource allocation. Ghana lies in the "meningitis belt" and is among the top five countries in the WHO African Region for yellow fever cases, making both diseases critical public health concerns. Climate change shifts geospatial and temporal disease patterns, complicating patient and provider awareness and preparedness. Utilizing spatial predictive modeling, this study aims to aggregate online and governmental data to identify and validate regions at high risk for meningitis and yellow fever outbreaks based on environmental, epidemiological, and socioeconomic factors.

Through interdisciplinary collaboration among academic partners and Ghana Health Service (GHS) program experts, the project will generate risk maps for various transmission cycles of yellow fever (urban, savannah, and sylvatic) and for the pathogens responsible for meningitis (N. meningitides and S. pneumoniae). The models will inform tailored risk stratification and optimized alert thresholds for different regions, enhancing the efficiency of vaccination programs and laboratory testing resources. This involves training a multi-disciplinary team of researchers and deploying data analysis tools with strong ethics oversight and community engagement.