DRONESURVEILLANCE
OF MALARIA:
A JAPANESE STARTUP’SGLOBAL HEALTH EFFORTS

Malaria is killing people and hampering economic growth in Africa.
To eradicate this infectious disease, a Japanese startup has been utilizing
drone technology.
Malaria ranks with acquired
immunodeficiency syndrome(AIDS) and tuberculosis as
one of the world’s three major
infectious diseases. Plasmodium
falciparum, a parasite carried bymosquitoes, breeds in red bloodcells, causing a high fever andother symptoms that often leadto death if not treated promptlyand appropriately. According toa report by the World HealthOrganization (WHO), anestimated 247 million people
worldwide were infected withmalaria in 2021, of whom
619,000 died. Ninety percent ofmalaria cases are concentrated
in Africa, posing a serious threat
to the health of Africans andstunting social development
through higher medical costs,

Drone demonstrations and training in Sierra
Leone, in collaboration with the Directorateof Science, Technology and Innovation andNjala University. Fixed-wing drones are often
used because of their long flight range andeasy maintenance. The company’s founderand CEO, KANEKO Yosuke, is in the frontrow, far left.

absenteeism among children, anda decline in the labor force.
SORA Technology, a Japanesestartup, has joined the fightagainst malaria. The company
has developed SORA Malaria
Control (sora meaning “sky”
in Japanese), a service thatcombines aerial drone images
with multiple AI technologies
to efficiently detect and manage
puddles with a considerable riskof harboring mosquito larvae.
Since 2022, SORA Technology
has been running a pilot projectto implement this service inSierra Leone, a country on thecoast of Western Africa. Whilethe WHO has recognized larvalsource management (LSM) as ahighly effective method, it is not
yet in widespread use due to thelabor costs involved in finding
puddles and spraying insecticides,
not to mention the large amountof insecticides required forsuch a task. But SORA Malaria
Control can reduce those costs
significantly, which bodes wellfor the implementation ofLSM. SORA Technology plans
to complete its pilot projectin 2024, obtain funding fromlocal government agencies andinternational donors, then begin
full-scale project implementation.
As mosquitoes and water transmit
many other infectious diseases
in addition to malaria, such as
cholera and dengue fever, research
is underway to apply SORA
Malaria Control to the buildingof surveillance systems for thosetransmissible diseases as well.
Mary Yeboah Asantewaa,
from Ghana, works as a Health
Tech/Africa Business Specialist
at SORA Technology. She said,“I joined SORA Technology
because I wanted to engage inAfrica-related work for a techcompany that’s committed toglobal health.” As the only African
employee, she is working hard tobuild a network for the effective
use of drone technology on theJapan has a long history of medical cooperationin Africa, having established the Noguchi
Memorial Institute for Medical Research in
Ghana in 1979 to study infectious diseases.
Japanese Prime Minister Kishida visited theinstitute this May.

Left: Drone flight tests in Sierra Leone. Since multicopter drones have an advantage over fixed-wingdrones in terms of imaging accuracy, both may be used depending on the situation.
Right: SORA Malaria Control utilizes several image analysis technologies to determine the parametersof puddles, including depth, temperature, and the surrounding vegetation, in order to assess the risk ofmosquito larvae breeding.

continent. SORA Technology
signed a memorandum ofunderstanding (MOU) withSenegal’s Institut Pasteur de
Dakar in January 2023. The
MOU states that both parties will
initiate discussions and explore
innovative collaboration on theuse of drones as a tool to prevent
future infectious disease outbreaks
and improve public health in rural
Africa. Earlier, SORA Technology
had concluded an MOU on the“Establishment of Medical Drone
Infrastructure in Sierra Leone”
with Sierra Leone’s Directorateof Science, Technology andInnovation and Njala University,
to build drone infrastructure withthe primary purpose of delivering
medical supplies. The company
plans to continue researching
the operation of SORA Malaria
Control in collaboration withacademia, and to work with theNoguchi Memorial Institute for
Medical Research in Ghana on
measures to combat a new species
of mosquito, Anopheles stephensi,
that has appeared in Ghana.
SORA Technology’s efforts
were accepted because of thetrust that Japan has built up
over many years of international

cooperation. Asantewaa said, “WeAfricans need the cooperationof the Japanese government andJapan’s superior technology, suchas that provided through theJapan International Cooperation
Agency ( JICA).” Japan willcontinue to focus on cooperation
at both the national-government
and private-sector levels toeradicate malaria and otherinfectious diseases.

Mary Yeboah Asantewaa became interested inhealthcare after volunteering at a hospital while astudent at the University of Ghana. She studiedin Japan through the Japan Africa Dream
Scholarship program, a project launched in 2017by the African Development Bank and theGovernment of Japan, where she earned amaster’s degree in public health. Based on such abackground, she focuses on leveraging drone
technology and data analytics to bridge
healthcare gaps and empower communities
through SORA Technology.