South Korea’s telecommunications company, KT, has signed an agreement on the use of Big Data in preventing infectious diseases with the Ghana Health Service.

Attendees at the signing ceremony in Accra, Ghana, included Yoon Jong-Jin, KT’s senior executive vice president in charge of public relations and Dr Anthony Nsiah Asare, director-general of Ghana Health Service (GHS).

Other key figures are Kim Sung-Soo, Ambassador of Korean Embassy of Ghana, Michael Melchior, Country Director of U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Ghana, Dr Owen Laws Kaluwa, Ghana Country Representative of the World Health Organization (WHO), Fiachra McAsey, Deputy Representative of UNICEF Ghana, and Mr. Yukyum Kim, Country Director of KOICA Ghana.

KT Corp.’s agreement on disease control, its first with a public health agency, has drawn attention from the international health community, especially because of Ghana’s location in West Africa. In 2014-16, the region suffered the most widespread Ebola virus epidemic in recorded history, while there is no confirmed Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) case in Ghana to date, according to the WHO.

“We will help Ghana take the initiative in healthcare in West Africa,” KT’s Yoon said. “We will go beyond Africa and push for disease prevention in other parts of the world where the infrastructure for healthcare and education is still developing.”

KT’s disease prevention system analyzes location-based information including roaming data that it collects, uses the data to guide its customers on preventing epidemics, and builds a monitoring system that helps health authorities assess infection risk at the initial stage of an outbreak.

KT started working on the system in 2016 with the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Information Society Agency to demonstrate how Big Data can be used in disease control. The project came a year after MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) hit Korea. Now it is regarded as a showcase of collaboration between the public and private sectors.

Based on the project’s success, KT is seeking collaboration with foreign governments and international organisations on the use of Big Data and information technology in preventing the spread of infectious diseases. To that end, the Korean company suggested a Global Epidemic Prevention Platform at the World Economic Forum’s annual conference in January this year.

Read the source article in IT News Africa.