by Maria Carnovale
Sanitation is a major global health issue. ITGH is leading a working group of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Telecommunication Union to explore how Artificial Intelligence can mitigate the health impacts of inadequate sanitation infrastructure.
In our “AI for Sanitation” project, terrestrial sensors in sewage systems combined with space technology from the European Space Agency (ESA), will collect and analyze data that will inform health workers of potential outbreaks as a result of pathogens in wastewater in Durban, South Africa.
Poor sanitation is a public health threat. About 50,000 liters of untreated sewage is released every second in South Africa and the country has one of the world’s highest rates of mortality for children under the age of five, with about 10% of those deaths resulting from diarrhea.
The project is in partnership with Woodco Bioscience, the Toilet Board Coalition, and the University Of Kwazulu-Natal (UKZN).
Learn more about the project here.