Periodic Reporting for period 2 - IDAlert (Infectious Disease decision-support tools and Alert systems to build climate Resilience to emerging health Threats)
Reporting period: 2023-12-01 to 2025-05-31
Climate change is leading to newer trends in suitability and geographical ranges of hosts, vectors and pathogens and is aggravating the risk of vector-borne and zoonotic infectious disease outbreaks in Europe. For enhanced preparedness and adaptative management, policy and decision-makers need data and tools to monitor and respond to the constantly changing risks. IDAlert is contributing to this by developing case-study specific and Pan-European tailored monitoring of climate-induced disease risk by indicators, decision-support tools for climate early warning, and future scenario-based assessment for informing on changes in the risk landscape at decadal lead times. The project particularly addresses vulnerable groups. It advances developing novel surveillance and outbreak response tools, including citizen science with AI spectral and image analyses for insect visual learning, and solar-powered lab suitcases for pathogen detection. IDAlert rigorously studies interventions together with local stakeholders in case-study areas, such as interventions in the urban infrastructure, nature-based solutions (NbS), including their intended and unintended consequences. IDAlert partners with the European Lancet Countdown on Climate Change and Health and provides indicators for infectious diseases to the reports. Some of these indicators are uploaded on the EEA climate and health observatory. IDAlert engages with the public and key stakeholders at the local and European level through frequent online material and in-person meetings to promote capacity building. The project embraces participatory approaches and engages in stakeholder needs assessment, collective prioritization, inclusive decision-making, and shared knowledge generation. Due to the complexity of the challenge and many sectors affected, IDAlert involves diverse stakeholders from different disciplines, sectors, and level of decision authority to promote its work and findings.
IDAlert in its first 36 months, has around 20 research articles published, highlighting the progress made across various tasks. Additionally, new indicators related to IDAlert have been submitted to the upcoming European Lancet Countdown report, scheduled for 2026. The new indicators have considered socio-economic stratification and identified better vulnerable groups and unintended consequences. Existing indicators have been fundamentally improved. These indicators will be disseminated alongside the EEA Climate and Health Observatory, while some have already been integrated into the observatory.
Building on various activities, significant progress is being made, for example, in Barcelona, where the implementation of applications and interventions led to major success: storm drain modifications resulted in a reduction of mosquito larvae by more than 90%, as confirmed by data analysis specifically during RP2. For tick monitoring in Sweden, the citizen science tool collected a large number of images from the public, which enabled the development of an effective tick identification model using deep learning, to play a key role in future citizen science data collection, enhancing the accuracy and scalability of tick surveillance efforts.
EpiOutlook – a seasonal forecasting platform - has made a major step forward. By linking climate forecasts with health indicators, we hope to provide stakeholders—including EEA, WHO-WMO, WOAH, and ECDC - with actionable seasonal outlooks for multiple epidemiological metrics. The prototype of the platform has been evaluated through different processes with various stakeholders, with the vision of launching EpiOutlook by June 2026.
The media profile of IDAlert remains high. The project website, newsletter, and social media platforms are widely appreciated by stakeholders. The project actively engages in capacity building and stakeholder engagements, and several activities.
Building on various activities, significant progress is being made, for example, in Barcelona, where the implementation of applications and interventions led to major success: storm drain modifications resulted in a reduction of mosquito larvae by more than 90%, as confirmed by data analysis specifically during RP2. For tick monitoring in Sweden, the citizen science tool collected a large number of images from the public, which enabled the development of an effective tick identification model using deep learning, to play a key role in future citizen science data collection, enhancing the accuracy and scalability of tick surveillance efforts.
EpiOutlook – a seasonal forecasting platform - has made a major step forward. By linking climate forecasts with health indicators, we hope to provide stakeholders—including EEA, WHO-WMO, WOAH, and ECDC - with actionable seasonal outlooks for multiple epidemiological metrics. The prototype of the platform has been evaluated through different processes with various stakeholders, with the vision of launching EpiOutlook by June 2026.
The media profile of IDAlert remains high. The project website, newsletter, and social media platforms are widely appreciated by stakeholders. The project actively engages in capacity building and stakeholder engagements, and several activities.
IDAlert has provided updates to existing indicators and introduced new ones for climate-sensitive infectious diseases, extending beyond current standard approaches. We have delivered updated indicators for dengue, malaria, vibrio, Hantavirus, Leishmaniasis, Tick-borne diseases, West Nile Virus, Avian Flu, which have been incorporated into, for example, the Lancet Countdown Europe; European Climate and Health Observatory, and European Union Climate Risk Assessment
Early progress from the EpiOutlook platform shows its potential to generate actionable seasonal outlooks for multiple health indicators, helping to inform public health planning and response. IDAlert is supporting the development of AI-powered citizen science tools for surveillance and has been exploring adaptation strategies in urban environments to manage vector-borne diseases, many of which are being refined to be shared widely.
Early progress from the EpiOutlook platform shows its potential to generate actionable seasonal outlooks for multiple health indicators, helping to inform public health planning and response. IDAlert is supporting the development of AI-powered citizen science tools for surveillance and has been exploring adaptation strategies in urban environments to manage vector-borne diseases, many of which are being refined to be shared widely.