GIS advancements could significantly contribute so as to avoid more deaths from spreads of deadly viruses, like the later Ebola virus or Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_disease). The GIS related scientific community could prove that by concentrated actions and knowledge on related projects, could promote better managerial handling of the occurence of EHF.
I would personally propose the following links:
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and especially,
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In case you have any additional input, please feel free to disseminate your knowledge to all.
You might check my brief blog for the University of Chicago Press which published my Disease Maps: Epidemics on the Ground (2012). It's at: http://pressblog.uchicago.edu/2014/08/13/tom-koch-on-ebola-and-the-new-epidemic.html.
A deeper answer is one that brings up the purpose of the map the GIS is to produce. What will it add? At the large, local scale of the region mapping both identifies the areas (by town) where ebola is most active and resources most needed. To that can be added resources available and those that are needed but not in place. And, too, there is the ability to map (and we've been doing this for over a centure), the progress of the diseass, often identifying specific vectors (health personnel, itinerants, etc.). Nationally we see the disease's progress in the S.Saharan countries, adding mortality and morbidity figures into a time frame (by month, perhaps). And then there is the global map in which we see both ebola's attempts to spread and the varying forms of containment being employed to prevent it.
So the issue of GIS isn't one simply of maps available or resources for mapping but the type of questions being asked.
Dear Dr Koch and Dr. Ferrarini, thank you both very much for your significant contribution.
Dr. Koch, I will try to read the book at first occasion. I appreciate the briefing on this book and I would like to learn more about the contribution of Hippocrates on the influenza pandemic.
However, as I am currently trying to develop my expertise into two different directives (research projects and educational curricula) of Geospatial Medicine, I continuously come into the same issue: How is it possible to spatially correlate two, propably, uncorrelated factors? What I mean to say, is that spatial dissemination of a disease is related about 60-70% on environmental factors and by 30-40% on human-anthropogenic factors (as doctors say). How could we approach both the spatial development of these factors, at the same time, so as to approach more accurate, dynamic geospatial models and estimations of "what-if" scenarios?
Of course, besides any answer, I also look forward to any related publication or website on that issue.
Regards, Abraham
link is http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/2014_West_Africa_Ebola_Response
and there's this one from Esri(UK) http://bit.ly/1kwrACp via the Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/society/ng-interactive/2014/aug/13/ebola-outbreaks-interactive-map
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