The UAE and the World Health Organization (WHO) are establishing a regional database to monitor and fight malaria in 18 countries, which is a significant step in the fight to eradicate the illness.

Under the direction of Erth Zayed Philanthropies, the Global Institute for Disease Elimination (GLIDE) is spearheading the program, which is concentrating on the Middle East and Africa.

The project's goal is to create a comprehensive digital platform that uses a century's worth of environmental and disease data to map out areas at risk for malaria.

The platform, which was created in partnership with Oxford University, the Kenya Medical Research Institute and the WHO's Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, will help nations better understand and stop the spread of malaria by providing maps, information on mosquito breeding grounds, and climate data.

In order to prevent the disease from resurfacing, the system will enable more intelligent resource allocation, more precise risk assessments, and more regional collaboration, according to Dr. Farida Al Hosani, Deputy CEO of GLIDE.

Human mobility and the continued existence of mosquitoes that spread malaria pose a threat to a comeback of the disease, even if the majority of the nations concerned are currently malaria-free.

With plans to add other vector-borne diseases in the future, the database is anticipated to be finished by 2025.