GIS software to monitor mosquito breeding areas

While an integrated disease surveillance system and a GIS-based mapping of government hospitals is in place, the new project will seek to focus solely on the mosquito and the diseases it spreads.

Director of Public Health, Tamil Nadu, P. Padmanabhan says the idea is to use GIS to track mosquito and larval density in specific zones and use that information to predict disease patterns. The Health Department will periodically collect mosquito and larval density data; he explains using GIS maps will help to factor in many other patterns that cannot be done manually.

In preparation, the Government has identified 200 sentinel sites in each district from where Health Department are collecting random samples to test for mosquito and larval density. The challenge will now be to integrate this data with GIS-enabled software.

Mr. Padmanabhan says the mapping will help divide different species of mosquito such as anopheles, culex and Aedes Aegypti, and identify their predominant breeding areas. For instance, it will be able to say if the type of breeding places has changed across the State. Over a period of time, a GIS-map will indicate changing endemic zones, migration of vectors (disease causing mosquitoes) and increasing incidence of disease.

“For example, we have been noticing that dengue is increasing in rural areas and cases of leptospirosis have been going up. There are other issues such as studying the vector balance, which will help predict disease outbreaks and the burden in a particular area. This is where we hope the GIS will come in handy for us public health professionals.”

The systems should be ready in about a month’s time, says Mr. Padmanabhan.

The Public Health Directorate is also examining some free open source software, created by a Kerala-based firm, Zyxware Technologies, which allows mapping of mosquito-borne diseases such as chikungunya, dengue and malaria.

Source : http://www.hindu.com