URIs_MOMENTUM_Research_and_Innovation_Magazine_Spring_2023_M

CELL PHONE APP HELPS BATTLE CHOLERA Research shows hope for pinpointing cholera hotspots

written by HUGH MARKEY

year trial in the fall of 2022 of a cell phone app designed to provide non-technical, actionable information about high-risk locations and potential spikes in cholera infection rates to people living in remote areas in Bangladesh. The project team includes Sonia Aziz, associate professor of economics at Moravian University in Pennsylvania; Emily Pakhtigian, assistant professor of public policy at Pennsylvania State University; and Kevin Boyle, a professor of agricultural and applied economics at Virginia Tech University. At URI, PhD students Farah Nusrat and Abdullah Islam helped build

For people in rural parts of the world, receiving vital information about water sources contaminated with cholera was nearly impossible — until now.

For people in rural parts of the world, receiving vital information about water sources contaminated with cholera was nearly impossible — until now. Cholera, a serious illness caused by consumption of food or water containing the bacteria Vibrio cholerae , has been quietly killing people for decades. Globally, we are in the seventh cholera pandemic, which officially began in 1961. The strains have largely persisted in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. The disease is

currently endemic in South Asia and continues to erupt in force in new countries in Africa every few years. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 1.3 million to 4 million people globally contract cholera each year and 21,000 to 143,000 people die from it. Ali Shafqat Akanda, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Rhode Island (URI) and his team completed a one

Page 52 | The University of Rhode Island { MOMENTUM: RESEARCH & INNOVATION }

SPRING | 2023 Page 53