The Role of AI in shielding the World against next Pandemic

When coronavirus pandemic struck, it caught everyone off the track, nobody imagined this virus, nobody thought it will definitely forced people inside, schools, place of worship, companies and literally everything and everyone were in lockdown. Many countries are still facing post Covid-19 challenges politically and economically, and yet to put a foot on that, and what the world cannot contain now, is another pandemic. Artificial Intelligence has evolved over time, its place in humans activities have grown and now at the services of human kind, the terrible number of lives lost during coronavirus still put many families around the globe in shock, not to talk about the prospect of another pandemic, AI has innovative role to play in curbing the next pandemic.

United States have taken the lead in apprehending the prospect of next pandemic outbreak using AI tool EVEScape to detect and shield the world against another havoc. University of California researchers are developing Artificial Intelligence that will help in detecting future pandemics through examining social media posts. These researchers are solely tasked with predicting and mitigating the danger of next pandemics. This can be done through monitoring public health trends and reactions, reviewing some policies to help curb possible pandemics in the future. One of the researchers, Nikki Thadani said “One of the unique strengths of our approach is that it can be used early in a pandemic. It could be good for… vaccine manufacturers, and also for people trying to identify therapeutics, particularly antibodies to get some insight early on into which mutations might arise even a year in the future.”

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The role of this AI tool EVEScape lies in shielding the world against possible outbreak, the strength of AI solely depends on information imputed on it. This is where issue of credibility and effectiveness of information will be a concern, in determining the approach that will be used in curbing future pandemics. This tool will put World Health Organization (WHO) in alerting the world about this prospect and measures to use. While AI tool spot these pandemics, the decisions are still with humans. While the algorithm may seem to pose a problem, to collect data of world’s population and its health trends, still part of the challenges, but a lot of improvement will be made in sharing credible information devoid of any manipulation.

Africa still in the Dark

African Union’s health agency has appealed to Western countries to come to Africa’s aid in dealing with mpox outbreak. African Centres for Disease Control Prevention and World Health Organization have responded with plan in place to curb mpox amid fresh 107 deaths and 3,160 new cases. Mpox was declared in August an international emergency by the WHO, concerned by the surge in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the epicentre of the outbreak, now present in 14 nations across the continent and still struggle to meet up with funds to fight the outbreak. The reliance on Western countries, create troubling moment for Africa, if Africa cannot embark on their own research, curb massive looting of public treasury, and give the younger generation something they can hope on, deadlock subsists and Africa still in the dark.

While some African countries have contributed to estimate of six month budget to fight the outbreak, 200,000 vaccines have been distributed by the European Union to Democratic Republic of Congo and have also received 50,000 from United States. Mpox is effective through human to human contacts, can also be transmitted by infested animals to human beings, formerly tagged monkey pox. Africa needs to think ahead in order to apprehend crisis and have reformed approach that will help in solving problems, running to China, Russia or the West is always a recipe for disaster, it blinds the vision to think outside the scope in providing solutions rocking the continent.

Africa cannot boost of their own vaccine to contain the outbreak, yet raise concern over effectiveness of the vaccines sent. United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has warned of danger of open defecation which leaves 200 million Nigeria citizens vulnerable to Neglected Tropical Disease (NTD). The West have gone to apprehend the prospect of next pandemics yet Africa still battle with barest of these problems due to lack of leadership and commitment to improving livelihood and people’s health. With the whole trends and quest to improve conditions of living, it is self-evident that Africa is still living in past, which create bigger problems for younger generation as already existing problems are overwhelming them and have created stunted growth across all sectors of human endeavours in the continent.