ENDCast: Early Warning System to Forecast Outbreaks of Climate-Sensitive Infectious Diseases
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Tuesday, 4 March 2025 -
15:15h - 15:30h -
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Chloe Fletcher
First Stage Researcher at Earth Sciences Department, Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) -
Daniela Lührsen
Research Engineer at Earth Sciences Department, Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC)
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Extreme weather and climate events, such as those exhibited during El Niño or La Niña events, can trigger cascading effects that impact human health, including population displacement after flooding, food insecurity due to drought, and outbreaks of climate-sensitive infectious diseases. To mitigate or prevent adverse health outcomes, early warning systems that integrate seasonal climate forecasts can be used to forecast the timing, location and severity of health hazards several months in advance. These forecasts enable public health decision-makers to identify and carry out targeted interventions to reduce morbidity and mortality.
During the 2023/24 El Niño event, we co-developed a flexible and reproducible early warning framework and platform called ENDCast (El Niño driven Disease foreCasting) in partnership with institutions across the Latin American and Caribbean region. ENDCast is designed to generate routine predictions of climate-sensitive infectious disease outbreaks 1 to 6 months in advance. The online platform allows public health actors to access and visualise these predictions to support local and national decision-making. The ENDCast framework can be rolled out in response to emerging El Niño or La Niña events, or as part of routine planning, in any country with endemic outbreaks of climate-sensitive infectious diseases.
