Satellite surveillance of mosquitoes needed to eradicate malaria, says Bill Gates

Global leaders call on the Commonwealth to halve malaria in next five years

Bill Gates demonstrating how drones are being used for surveillance (Malaria Summit London)

Increased investment in satellite surveillance of mosquitoes is needed to eradicate malaria, the Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates has said.

Real time surveillance data is necessary to tailor intervention packages to tackle the disease, he said at a landmark Malaria summit in London attended by business leaders, 16 heads of state and Prince Charles.

Systems are needed that would “mix and match interventions in ways we've never done before” to fight the disease effectively, Mr Gates added.

“Malaria is a patchy disease," he said. "We need to understand the patches. This requires data down to the district level or even lower. Advances in satellite imaging and machine learning will make it much easier to build surveillance systems that operate at this kind of resolution."

Satellites and drones should be used to monitor mosquitoes to allow intervention packages to be tailored specifically, he added.

There were 216 million cases of malaria worldwide and it killed 445,000 people in 2016, according to the most recent figures from the World Health Organisation.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has committed nearly $2bn (£1.4bn) in grants to combat malaria and has pledged an additional $1bn (£700m) of new funding to tackle the disease.

Although significant progress has been made, for the first time in a decade the number of malaria cases in the world has risen.

“Malaria isn't just patchy. It's also spiky. We need to know when those spikes happen, so that we can mobilise," Mr Gates said. "In elimination settings, we need to know about every diagnosis right away, so that we can prevent large-scale reinfection.

“Electronic reporting through handheld devices can turn our current surveillance system, with its months of lag time, into a real-time system that is also geolocated.”

Some countries like Zambia have already invested in surveillance systems and has also trained health workers to report and track infections accurately as well as provide treatment.

Around one-third of the health facilities in the country now provide near real-time reporting.

The Malaria Summit London 2018 was co-hosted by the governments of Rwanda, Swaziland and the United Kingdom, to galvanise renewed action on the disease

A total of £2.9 billion was pledged as the Commonwealth aimed to halve malaria in the next five years. It is thought that collective action could prevent 350 million cases of the disease and save more than 650,000 lives.

Theresa May said the UK would invest £500m each year over the next three years to develop new drugs and technologies .

The Prime Minister said: “Today there are millions still at risk, economies held back and a child’s life needlessly taken every two minutes from this disease. This is why I am championing a new Commonwealth commitment to halve malaria across member countries by 2023.”

James Whiting, Executive Director of Malaria No More UK, who are the Summit organisers, said: “It is exciting to see the UK and the Commonwealth stepping up. It is now time for the rest of the world to do the same. The coming together of governments, the private sector, philanthropists and NGOs demonstrates the determination to beat malaria.”