Discovery joins Challenge to counter future pandemics
Health and life insurer Discovery has joined a global coalition of top names in business, philanthropy and academia, including tech giants Facebook and Google, in an ambitious initiative that aims to use data and analytics to protect the world from future health emergencies such as Covid-19.
Other key players include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, Tencent and Microsoft.
The coronavirus pandemic has swept around the world since it emerged in China late last year, disrupting trade and travel and leaving no economy unscathed. In a little more than nine months, more than 28.8million cases and 920,000 deaths have been recorded. Many countries that appeared to have brought their epidemics under control are now grappling with a resurgence of the virus as they open their economies.
The Trinity Challenge hopes the platform it has created will enable participants to share data and analytics to improve the identification, response and recovery from future disease outbreaks in a way that governments and multilateral organisations are unable to do, said founder member Dame Sally Davies, former UK chief medical officer and now master of Trinity College Cambridge.
“What we want is great thinking, breakthrough ideas that lead to a difference, and then we will hand off to delivery agents,” Davies said.
Collaborations are being encouraged between founding members and outside organisations, with applications for the first round of funding opening in October. The challenge aims to raise £30m over three years. “The real prize is not the money, but getting insights that people take up to make a difference,” she said.
A key aspect of the challenge is forging partnerships between companies and organisations that would not ordinarily work together to harness the behavioural data held in the private sector, she said. “People in the private sector have data on behaviour that no-one else has. To really understand how to change things going forward we need that. For health and economic recovery, behaviour will be a key issue,” she said. Discovery CEO Adrian Gore said the Trinity Challenge encapsulates some of the megathemes emerging from the coronavirus crisis, such as the importance of health and wellbeing, the pivotal role of technology and innovation, and the power of partnerships.
Discovery has partnered with the SA government to launch a Covid-19 contact-tracing app, and its analysis of medical scheme member claims has shown people who exercise regularly are at a materially lower risk of severe illness and death from Covid-19.
Discovery also used the data from its early analysis of Covid19 claims to identify high-risk policy holders, who were provided with a pulse oximeter to monitor their blood oxygen levels to warn of a potentially silent deterioration in their condition, said Discovery chief actuary Emile Stipp. Using these devices ensured high-risk members sought timeous medical care. “We saved quite a few thousand lives by making them [pulse oximeters] available,” he said.
Davies said the data shared within the Trinity Challenge will be subject to strict governance controls. “We take data privacy and protection extremely seriously,” she said.
The prize not money, the real is but getting insights that people take up to make a differenc