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Africa@home

Small Grant

Keywords

Health - Information and communication technologies - Volunteer Computing

Summary

The AFRICA@home project aims to provide worldwide distributed computing resources for the benefit of computer modelling of malaria epidemiology. This interdisciplinary project is a partnership between the University of Geneva (UniGe), the Swiss Tropical Institute (STI), two Geneva-based NGOs, a Geneva-based international organisation (ICVolunteers), CERN and the Université Cheikh Anta Diop (UCAD) in Dakar, Senegal.

Malaria causes about 500 million clinical attacks each year, and over a million deaths, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa. Because of this enormous burden of acute illness, malaria is a major factor inhibiting economic development in endemic countries, which have per capita GDP growth significantly lower than countries in the developed world. Furthermore, malaria has its greatest effects amongst the poorest Africans, aggravating social inequity.

Simulation models of the transmission dynamics and health effects of malaria, are an important tool for malaria control. They can be used to help prioritise the development among different candidate vaccines, to determine optimal strategies for delivering mosquito nets, chemotherapy, or new vaccines which are currently under development and testing.

Such modelling is extremely computer intensive, requiring simulations of large human populations with a diverse set of parameters related to biological and social factors that influence the distribution of the disease. The STI has developed a computer model for malaria epidemiology and harnessed its in-house PC capacity, about 40 machines, to do preliminary studies. But far more computing power is required to validate such models and to adequately simulate the full range of interventions and transmission patterns relevant for malaria control in Africa.

The grant provided by the GIAN for this project totals SFr 46,000

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Project Team

Mr Silvano de Gennaro , Coordinator, European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) .

Mr François Fluckiger , Principal Member, European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) .

Mr Jacques Fontignie , Principal Member, European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) .

Mr François Grey , Principal Member, European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) .

Mr William Kamdem , Principal Member, University Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar .

Mr Michael Keller , Principal Member, University of Basel .

Ms Viola Krebs , Principal Member, Intenational Conference Volunteers (ICV) .

Mr Nicolas Maire , Principal Member, Swiss Tropical Institute (STI) .

Prof. Christian Pellegrini , Principal Member, University Centre of Information Technology , University of Geneva (Unige) .

Mr Bakary Sagara , Principal Member, University Cheikh Anta Diop of Dakar .

Mr Ben Segal , Principal Member, European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) .

Mr Tom Smith , Principal Member, Swiss Tropical Institute (STI) .

Mr Christian Soettrup , Principal Member, European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) .

Mr Chrull Soettrup , Principal Member, European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) .

Mr Jasenko Zivanov , Principal Member, University of Basel .

Related News

Related Conferences

WHO Lunch Time Seminar on Health Grids: The Africa@home Project – 17 November 2006
The large computing power made available through volunteer computing can be harnessed for health projects. Africa@home...
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Research Output

Volunteer Computing for African Humanitarian Causes
(available in English and French)
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