Technology & IT | Tuesday 9 June, 2015 2:45 pm |

GCC healthcare authorities urgently need to deploy technology solutions to prevent the spread of contagious diseases, following global outbreaks of malaria and Ebola, experts announced today at the Big Data Show, co-located at the Internet of Things Expo, in Dubai.

With a rapidly growing and aging population, GCC countries are particularly at risk, as demand for treatment of infectious diseases is projected to increase by 216 percent to 2025, when GCC healthcare spending will reach USD 60 billion, according to the World Economic Forum.

Worldwide, more than 600,000 people die every year due to malaria, and there have been more than 27,000 cases and more than 11,000 deaths from Ebola, according to the United Nations’ World Health Organization.

Pandemic prevention requires robust public health systems to detect contagions early in animals and humans, ensure correct diagnosis, and respond rapidly to stop the contagion from spreading, according to the World Bank, which predicts that a global pandemic could cost the global economy USD 3 trillion.

“As tens of millions of expatriates and visitors pass through the region annually, the GCC urgently needs to adopt the most advanced real-time Big Data solutions that could quickly track and control the spread of contagious diseases, especially for growing at-risk youth and elderly populations,” said Irfan Khan, CTO of Global Customer Operations at SAP.

“Our SAP HANA cloud platform shows the power of a real-time, centralized, and cloud-based database that can be easily accessed on mobile devices. Healthcare professionals can log patient symptoms, provide a preliminary diagnosis, and track any mutations or symptom changes over time and geography,” added Irfan Khan.

Irfan Khan presented on “Simplifying and Accelerating Big Data Business Initiatives” with Prof. Dr. Gérard Krause, Head of Department of Epidemiology, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research. Germany’s government supported scientific partners in Germany and Nigeria in creating the Surveillance and Outbreak Response Management and Analysis System (SORMAS) to better detect and control health crises such as the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa. The system is being implemented with the analytics capabilities of the SAP HANA cloud platform.

“Thanks to the GCC’s strong mobile broadband penetration, the region is ideally-placed to become a global leader in preventing deadly diseases with mobile solutions,” said Prof. Dr. Gérard Krause, Head of Department and Epidemiology, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research.

As part of the company’s commitment to attracting funds and providing innovative solutions for developing regions, SAP has partnered with The Global Fund to support the “last mile” of care for deadly diseases in Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal, Dominican Republic, Laos, Uganda, and South Africa. SAP has also partnered with Brazilian startup Fumajet to fight vector-borne diseases in Brazil, Angola, the Dominican Republic, and Equatorial Guinea.