Visualize No Malaria campaign to prove malaria elimination possible in Africa

LAS VEGAS, October 20, 2015—PATH and Tableau Foundation are proud to announce a new five-year campaign to eliminate malaria in Zambia. The Visualize No Malaria campaign is rooted in the belief that real-time data about the spread of the disease makes it possible to identify, isolate, and ultimately eliminate the malaria parasite across a region. The partners are also calling on other corporations and philanthropists to join the campaign and make a malaria-free world a reality.

Visualize No Malaria will start in Zambia, where a strong commitment has been made by the government to eliminate malaria nationwide. Additionally, the two organizations hope to create a replicable model of the campaign that can be deployed across the globe.

"Zambia has made incredible progress reducing malaria in the last 10 years. Now, with their partners, they are poised to eliminate malaria completely," said Duncan Earle, director of the Malaria Control and Elimination Partnership in Africa, PATH.

Malaria continues to exact a terrible price across the African continent. Recurring bouts keep adults out of work and children out of school, costing countries with high levels of the disease an estimated 1.3% GDP growth every year. Worse yet, the disease takes the life of about one person every minute.

"The new PATH partnership with Tableau Foundation will help Zambia realize this bold goal by using data in new and better ways to more efficiently track emerging transmission patterns, optimize the way resources are deployed, and eventually help hunt down the last malaria parasites," said Earle.

The tools needed for malaria elimination are well known at this point — bednets to protect people from infectious bites, indoor spraying to kill mosquitos, distribution of effective drug treatments, systems for tracking positive cases, and better trained health professionals to treat the disease. Now, with real-time data and analytics, local health officials and civic leaders can decide where, when, and how to deploy those tools in a timely manner.

"To eliminate malaria, information has to move faster than the disease and by using Tableau, the Zambian government will have unprecedented access to that information," said Neal Myrick, Director, Tableau Foundation.

The Visualize No Malaria campaign pulls together a rich collection of companies, technical experts, and individual philanthropists into an innovative partnership that can create meaningful change. This collective contribution of talent, tools, and time recognizes that a world without malaria is within our reach. PATH and Tableau encourage like-minded leaders to visit VisualizeNoMalaria.org and find out how to get involved.

"Community by community, district by district, PATH and Tableau Foundation are honored to assist Zambia in becoming the first large, sub-Saharan African country to become malaria free," said Earle.

PATH is one of the world's leading organizations in the battle to eliminate and eventually eradicate malaria. The Seattle-based nonprofit, founded in 1977, is working to combat malaria in 22 countries worldwide by improving and expanding diagnostic tools and treatment, developing and advancing effective vaccines, ensuring a stable supply of drugs for malaria treatment, improving data systems and data use for decision-making, and strengthening national malaria programs to accelerate efforts toward elimination.

The Tableau Foundation is an initiative led by the employees of Tableau Software (NYSE: DATA) that encourages the use of facts and analytical reasoning to solve the world's problems. Tableau Foundation grants combine Tableau's two most valuable resources — its people and its products — with financial support to nonprofits that are using data to reshape communities around the globe. Since 2014, the Tableau Foundation and Tableau employees have contributed 2,355 volunteer hours and $4.1m to 460 nonprofits worldwide. To learn more, please visit www.tableaufoundation.org.