Geo-enabled detect and respond system for antimalarial resistance in Ghana: GDRS - Ghana - Emerging arboviral diseases, including West Nile virus, Zika, and Lyme disease, represent growing public health threats to the United States and globally due to weather-driven vector expansion, increasing international mobility, changing ecologies, and the emergence of drug and insecticide resistance. These same forces continue to intensify the burden of malaria and other vector-borne diseases across West Africa, where ongoing transmission, expanding vector populations, and emerging antimalarial drug resistance (AMDR) threaten recent gains in disease control and elimination. Strengthened genomic and molecular surveillance systems capable of integrating epidemiological, geospatial, and operational data are urgently needed to support early detection of emerging resistance, improve outbreak preparedness, and guide timely public health response. Molecular markers are particularly valuable tools for detecting drug resistance and can identify emerging resistance patterns before widespread treatment failures occur. The Geo-enabled Detect and Response System for Antimalarial Resistance (GDRS) project addresses the urgent need for integrated genomic and geospatial surveillance through a strategic collaboration between two scientifically complementary networks: the DS-I Africa INFORM Research Hub, comprising the US-based Akros Inc., and the Institute for Human Virology Nigeria (IHV-N), and the West African Centre for Cell Biology of Infectious Pathogens (WACCBIP). These partners will strengthen Ghana’s malaria genomic surveillance network through the capture of community-level, geo-enabled dried blood spot (DBS) samples and the integration of additional epidemiologic, genomic, and operational surveillance data streams across geographies. West Africa provides a uniquely suitable implementation environment because ongoing malaria transmission, emerging antimalarial and insecticide resistance, and established national malaria surveillance systems create the epidemiological and operational conditions necessary to evaluate integrated genomic and geospatial surveillance approaches under real-world public health conditions. These partners provide advanced NGS capacity, longitudinal surveillance data, and implementation expertise not replicable in non-endemic environments. Through Reveal, the consortium will geo-enable WACCBIP’s existing malaria genomic surveillance network and expand it to link DBS samples collected at the community level to advanced next-generation sequencing (NGS) laboratories. The platform will support real-time visualization and monitoring of molecular markers of antimalarial resistance and enable geospatial alignment of genomic data with epidemiologic, environmental, programmatic, and sociodemographic data streams to guide intervention response and operational decision-making. Linking and geo-enabling the existing surveillance network through Reveal will improve the granularity, timeliness, and operational utility of AMDR surveillance, and strengthen understanding of resistance emergence and transmission. The scientific advances generated through this project are directly relevant to U.S. public health priorities and global health security preparedness. The integration of genomic surveillance, geospatial analytics, and real-time operational response systems developed will generate transferable implementation knowledge applicable to surveillance and response systems for infectious diseases in the U.S.. The project will inform future approaches for integrating genomic surveillance, outbreak detection, and operational response coordination for weather-sensitive vector-borne diseases and other emerging pathogens of growing concern. The Reveal platform has immense opportunity to scale to provide geospatial intelligence to disease surveillance and response initiatives within the U.S..
