BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Google said Thursday that a half dozen of its engineers are working to help Brazil track the Zika virus and the mosquito that spreads it by doing one of the things the search engine giant does best: write algorithms.
Volunteer Google engineers in San Francisco and New York are working with UNICEF counterparts to create a system that combines several types of data to help predict where the Aedes aegypti mosquito might next be particularly active, helping in eradication efforts.
Zika has become an epidemic in Latin America and the Caribbean since last fall. The virus is mainly spread through mosquito bites and has been potentially linked to birth defects.
The data sets will include movement of people gathered from cellular phone locator systems, weather patterns and epidemiological maps of the Zika outbreak from the Brazilian Ministry of Health.
The size of Brazil makes combating the pest a huge task. Gary Stahl, UNICEF’s representative in Brazil, said the data would be cross-referenced with epidemiological maps created by the country’s Health Ministry.
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