The Problem

Despite decades of effort to eliminate diseases such as malaria and polio, complex variables like climate, geography and social behavior have thwarted eradication campaigns in many parts of the world. Our limited understanding of these variables, their relationship to one another and how they will respond to eradication techniques has slowed efforts to combat curable diseases.

Our Approach

Use computer modeling to better understand infectious diseases and provide public health organizations with a tool to inform eradication campaigns.

The Technology

Intellectual Ventures is developing a new computer model that calculates not only how diseases spread in a particular part of the world, but also how they will respond to deliberate suppression efforts. The goal of this model is not just to understand and control a disease, but to stamp it out completely. By consolidating aspects of disease dynamics, the model can make specific projections about which combination of eradication measures will have the greatest likelihood of success in a region given the particular geography, climate, season, and environmental and social conditions that are in place there. IV’s model benefits from a team of professional software developers working to ensure that the mathematical and scientific modeling insights are translated into extensible, usable and flexible software to empower the public health community.