Mosquito-borne diseases prevention and control using AI & sensors

Moskeet platform joins the real-time sensor data concerning virus or parasite presence and specific mosquito data with other disease-relevant and publicly available data.  It enables the use of analytical tools to help organizations make data-driven decisions. Graphs and geospatial mapping enable a unified view of efforts.

TrakItNow CEO, Satish Cherukumalli and Dr. Nathan Burkett-Cadena FMEL will present.  The team includes Dr. Barry Alto, Dr. Dongmin Kim, Dr. Ozelam Yalen, Dr. Steven Benner and Terry DeBriere.

Mosquito-borne diseases like Malaria, Dengue, Chikungunya, Zika, etc are posing a great challenge globally to the quality of life and leading to millions of deaths, from 750 Million to 1 Billion disease occurrences annually.  These diseases create a strain on the public health system and local economies, with an overall cost of $100 Billion per year.  The traditional approach used for the last 100 years is not based on a real-time data-driven analytical approach. Moskeet is an integrated data platform that provides real-time analytics on mosquito surveillance & control, disease transmission, outbreaks, and hot spots using sensors(IoT) and Artificial Intelligence(AI) technologies.  Moskeet integrates all the stakeholders which include governments, citizens, pest management & pesticide companies, hospitals, pharmaceuticals, NGOs, and research agencies.  A single disease occurrence in a family in developing countries can push them into poverty and disrupt the kids' education.  Moskeet will improve the quality of life by reducing the disease burden.

Public health organizations including local, national, or worldwide (i.e. WHO) are the primary target audience for our solution.  However, many others in the health arena, such as pharmaceutical companies, NGOs, Universities, and local researchers can take advantage of our data platform.  We are currently engaging a number of these entities to help us understand their needs and to help them understand how they can use this data platform and what other data should be added to increase its value.

The second target audiences are residential communities and commercial campuses.  Across the globe, these segments engage private services for mosquito control operations.  

While working with the target audience we noticed frustration because there is no transparency or scientific & real-time data to help understand the threat, make decisions on control methods, understand the effectiveness of the operations and minimize pesticide usage.  They all feel like they are spending money and taking action but they don't work effectively.  They are scared of the disease threat to the communities and their families.  

We are engaging the audience by providing real-time and meaningful data.  The platform provides recommendations on the control methods, records the interventions, and provides feedback on the interventions.  Citizen App enables crowdsourcing of disease and breeding sites data.  Awareness messages are also communicated using the citizen app.  We are collaborating with mosquito repellant device manufacturers to operate autonomously based on the threat.

Moskeet’s major benefit is to reduce the disease burden.  A single disease occurrence in a family can push it into poverty and force the kids to stop school and go to work.  Other key benefits include lowering the cost of control operations, reduce pesticide usage thereby reducing the impact of pesticides on the environment, facilitate awareness campaigns and reduce the health care costs at public and family levels.  Our business model is to generate profits from private residential gated communities and commercial campuses while providing the solution for governments in developing countries at cost and zero capital costs.  Data generated across the public and private is also monetized with leading pest control & pest repellent companies.  This approach helps to sustain and expand the platform thereby reaching out to a large percentage of the population.  This in turn helps us to be cost-effective and provide better strategic value to customers.  Our data from our initial deployments indicated the following trends,

1) Improve pesticide effectiveness up to 10%

2) Reduce pesticide usage by 20%

3) Reduce operational costs by 25%

4) Lower disease burden by 20%

5) Reduction in mosquito populations by 30%

The activity of collecting species-specific population data provides an output showing the increase or decrease the potential of the vector which is used to determine if the vector control methods are working and how efficiently.  Another outcome of this activity is determining when reapplication is required, whether the application is being appropriately applied or the population is becoming resistant to pesticides.

The activity of determining the viral or parasitic load present at a given location provides an output showing where vector control needs are critical to curtailing outbreaks.  The outcome of further control can lead to alerting the health community to take steps to reduce the disease potential by working with the potentially affected population of mitigating steps they can take.
The activity of combining all known relevant data into a unified, holistic view provides the output of actionable data which can lead to an outcome of better understanding the impact of the vector control activities, leading to revising their strategies and focusing their resources more effectively.  These outcomes can all lead to a long-term goal in the reduction of mosquito-borne disease and reduce the physical, emotional, and economic impact thereof.

Surveillance is borne on the premise that control requires being able to observe and then measure the targeted event.  Our system provides the ability of stakeholders to observe and measure the effectiveness of their control activities on several levels of disease prevention.  

Mosquito-borne diseases impact millions of lives each year.  It carries with it a staggering impact on patients, their families, their jobs.  The impact is physical, emotional, and often economic.

The early detection of mosquito-borne disease prevalence, outbreaks, real-time monitoring vector control technique efficacy impacts millions of lives both from a health and economic impact point of view.  Millions of lives are affected worldwide by malaria, encephalitis, dengue, yellow fever, etc. 

Our business model is based on the following models,

1) Profit sale to private residential and commercial customers with device cost and subscription

2) Subscription model for governments in developing countries.  This is at cost for services and no capital cost.

3) Data monetization to commercial pesticide companies, pest control companies, travel industries etc.  

Go-to-Market Strategy

***** Market segments for Moskeet are, *****

1)         Smart Cities and local governments,

2)         Residential communities & Commercial Campuses

3)         Individual residences

***** Moskeet target geographies ******

1)         US & India

2)         South East Asia

3)         Africa

4)         South America

5)        Middle East

6)         Europe

***** Market reach with partners *****

1)         Smart cities solution integrators

2)         Reseller partners

3)         Online channel

4)         Licensing agreements

Below is the plan for market expansion by segment and geography,

***** Phase 1 – Since 2019 *****

1)         Geography – India, USA

            Market segment – Smart cites, local governments (1st market segment)

***** Phase 2 – 2021 (planned for 2020 but got delayed with COIVD-19 pandemic) *****

1)         Geography – South East Asia, South Africa

Market segment – Smart cites, local governments (1st market segment)

2)         Geography – India, USA

Market Segment – Residential communities, Commercial Campuses (2nd market segment)

***** Phase 3 – 2022 ******

1)         Geographies – South America, Europe

Market Segment - Smart cites, local governments (1st market segment)

2)         Geographies – Asia, Africa

Market Segment – Residential communities, Commercial Campuses (2nd market segment)

3)         Geographies –  India, USA

Market Segment - Individual residences (3rd market segment)

***** Phase 4 – 2023 *****

1)         Geographies – Asia, Africa, South America

Market Segment – Individual residences (3rd market segment)

2)         Geographies – All

Market Segment - Data Monetization

Several levels of monitoring are required for the evaluation of our impact.  

At the pilot level, the evaluation focuses on the effectiveness of each stage of the apparatus/system development.

At the implementation phase of testing and at the local level, the reduction of mosquitoes carrying disease is done by monitoring the efficacy of vector control procedures at the trap locations.

At a state or national level, the evaluation is based ultimately on disease reduction, but intermediate outcomes such as reduction of vector population and the reduction of viral detection is a key indicator of advancing success.
Observing the “Theory of Change” approach of activities leading to outputs that can affect outcomes and lead to desirable long-term changes is the approach and rationale for how we measure our success.
 
Surveillance is borne on the premise that control requires being able to observe and then measure the targeted event.  Our system provides the ability of stakeholders to observe and measure the effectiveness of their control activities on several levels of disease prevention.  

Approach barrier:

So far, there is more focus and budget allotted to treating mosquito-borne diseases.  WHO made surveillance the primary pillar in their recent Global Technical Strategy documents.  This will help in focussing on efforts to prevent the disease rather than treating it.  Our solution helps a great deal in this proactive approach.  

Financial barriers:-

Third-world countries have a great need for reducing or eradicating mosquito-borne disease but not the financial strength to pay for it.  It is our hope we can provide our system on a subscription basis and when the necessary partner with donor agencies to provide our system at little or no cost to the community.  In India, we were able to tap into Smart Cities funds. 

Technical barriers:– insufficient infrastructure, such as internet connectivity is one challenge that increases the systems operational cost. Power availability

Maintenance is another challenge that increases the cost of ownership but can be greatly reduced through self-diagnosis and self-cleaning which are technical challenges.  We plan to introduce these features in future versions.

Educational barriers -
On mosquito-borne diseases, prevention, and control.    

Current collaboration with the following organizations:-

• Research / Validation

     Firebird Biomolecular Sciences - For profit USA Corporation

     University of Florida, IAFS, Florida Medical Entomology Lab - Public

     Imperial College of London

     South African Medical Research Council

• Scaling up support

     MIT Solve

     India Health Fund

     Marico Innovation Foundation

• Commercial Partnerships

     L&T - India

     PwC India

     ITIL India

     Pestroniks - Singapore

     Komunidad - Philippines

We are currently looking for project opportunities to deploy Moskeet solution, and also grants/funding to complete the development of real-time disease detection feature in the smart traps.  We established reseller partners to explore commercial deployment opportunities.  We also initiated dialog with several agencies like Malaria No More, PATH, IVCC, Roll Back Malaria, PSI, Global Fund, World Malaria Program etc to integrate with their current projects.  Mosquito-borne diseases are a truly global problem and have been impacting humans for a very long time.  We strongly believe that we need to combine hands to solve this complex problem.  We would love opportunities to connect with Trinity Challenge members who can sponsor project opportunities.  We are also actively looking for research funding which can be in grants, loans, or equity. 

Following is the list of Trinity Challenge Members who are potential partners,

NGOs to provide project opportunities and grants – Gates Foundation, Patrick J McGovern Foundation (received a prize award in 2020)

Organizations to help in research/validation – John Hopkins, Imperial College of London (Currently collaborating with AI/ML teams),

Corporates – License/reseller partnerships – Verily (Google), Reckitt, Infosys, Fiocruz

Following is the list of potential partners who are not Trinity Challenge members,

NGOs to provide project opportunities and grants - Malaria No More, PATH, IVCC, Roll Back Malaria, PSI, Global Fund, World Malaria Program

Organizations to help in research/validation – Ifikara Research Institute, Nigerian Institute of Medical Research

Corporates – License/reseller partnerships – Henkel, Godrej, S C Johnson, Service Master, Bayer.