[health-vn] Disease maps can turn a crisis around

[Vern Weitzel]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20127006.300-disease-maps-can-turn-a-crisis-around.html?full=true&print=true

Disease maps can turn a crisis around

24 March 2009 by Linda Geddes
Magazine issue 2700. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.

A Zimbabwean cholera patient sits in his bed at a hospital in Harare in 2009 
(Image: Desmond Kwande/AFP/Getty)
AID workers in Zimbabwe need all the help that they can get, so a website that 
enables them to share information could be a big boost. Although Zimbabwe's 
cholera outbreak is finally showing signs of abating, the site could help relief 
groups as they attempt to rebuild the country's shattered infrastructure.

Launched this month, WikiMapAid will use collaborative wiki software to enable 
humanitarian workers and others to add health, welfare and education information 
to a version of Google Maps that can be viewed by anyone. The hope is that by 
circumventing official information channels, a clearer picture of what is 
happening on the ground can develop.

As went to press, a total of 89,649 cases of cholera and 4041 deaths had been 
reported in Zimbabwe since the outbreak began in August. But new cholera cases 
have fallen from around 8000 a week at the start of the year to 2151 in the 
first week of March. A central control centre was also recently set up in Harare 
with help from the Zimbabwean Ministry of Health.

Nevertheless, collecting data is still proving difficult, says Paul Garwood of 
the World Health Organization. "A crucial element for the control of cholera in 
Zimbabwe is the need to improve access to information, and the monitoring of new 
cases and suspected cases in the country," he says. "Any system that improves 
data collecting and sharing would be beneficial."

A crucial element for the control of cholera in Zimbabwe is improving access to 
information
That's where WikiMapAid could help. Users can create markers to show the 
location of places such as schools, hospitals or refugee centres, and they can 
attach links to video or photos of that place, or post a report of the current 
situation in the area. Similar services, such as the website HealthMap, have 
recently been developed to map disease outbreaks around the world.

At the moment, WikiMapAid is focusing on Zimbabwe, and as well as schools and 
suchlike, the tool lets you create other categories of marker to show not only 
the location of cholera outbreaks but also places like food and water 
distribution centres, says Rupert Douglas-Bate of Global Map Aid, the 
organisation leading the project. Users can also create new marker categories to 
show, say, public buildings, or to mark disease outbreaks in other countries.

The website is based on a Brazilian project called Wikicrimes, launched last 
year, in which members of the public share information about crime in their 
local area. It is designed to provide an alternative source of crime figures to 
official statistics, which some suspect of government manipulation, according to 
Vasco Furtado at the University of Fortaleza in Brazil, who developed the 
software for Wikicrimes and WikiMapAid. "Wikicrimes is a way of showing citizens 
that a particular area is a problem and to push the government to do something 
about it," he says.

Douglas-Bate hopes a similar approach in Zimbabwe could help ensure that aid is 
distributed correctly. "If we've all got the same situation report then we're 
all singing from the same hymn sheet," he says. Also, if people feel they will 
attract attention from the authorities by posting information, they could 
perhaps get friends on the outside to post information for them, he says.

As with all wikis, the integrity of the data will depend on the people supplying 
it. Although moderators will edit and keep track of postings, Douglas-Bate 
admits unreliable reporting could be a problem. To lessen this risk, Furtado is 
developing an algorithm that will rate the reputation of users according to 
whether the information they post is corroborated, or contradicted. "But even if 
we're just 80 per cent perfect, we will still have made a huge step forward in 
terms of being able to galvanise public opinion, raise funds, prioritise need 
and speed the aid on those who need it most," Douglas-Bate says.

Tracking a disease
Cholera breaks out in a remote part of a developing country and officials at the 
district capital are swamped by requests for help. Healthcare workers are 
scattered across the sparsely populated countryside and the situation is 
changing hour by hour. How can health services keep track of the situation and 
decide where to send aid first?

 From this June a marriage of cellphone and internet technology may help them 
cope. Cellphones are now widespread in many poor nations, and rather than health 
workers communicating individually, the new service, called GeoChat, will create 
an online map of their locations and any information they have to offer. Once up 
and running, it will coordinate relief efforts and ensure people are aware of 
who is doing what, and where.

Health workers start by creating a group on the GeoChat website that contains 
the contact details of all relevant people. Once the group is set up, workers 
will be able to text the other members via a special number. The text of each 
message is also relayed to the GeoChat map and appears next to the sender's 
location. Senders can identify their location by placing their coordinates or an 
address at the start of the message.

Watching the map of the messages will be like tracking the epidemiology of a 
disease in real time, says Eric Rasmussen of Innovative Support to Emergencies, 
Diseases and Disasters, a non-profit organisation based in Palo Alto, 
California, that developed GeoChat.

Jim Giles