MALARIA MAP TO TACKLE KILLER DISEASE

Researchers are creating a global malaria map to tackle the killer disease by pinpointing the areas where it strikes most often. The map, the first in 40 years, is designed to spot mosquitoes carrying the malaria parasite and determine where they are likely to infect people so that the best control and treatment strategies can be implemented.

So far scientists from Britain and Kenya, who are working on the Malaria Atlas Project (MAP), have gathered information on 3,126 communities in 79 out of the 107 countries where malaria is endemic. With the information, researchers in the individual countries will be able to work out how many on an average get the disease each year, what drugs will be needed and the amount of bed nets necessary to prevent infections.

WIDEN REACH OF GIS TO CONTAIN AIDS

The 2006 AIDS Epidemic Update , a report jointly prepared by the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) , released this month out the total number of HIV-infected people in the world to be anywhere between 34.1 and 47.1 m after an addition of 4.3 m new cases this year.

Notwithstanding promising developments in global efforts to check the spread of the dreaded disease, the number of HIV patients continues to grow as does the number of deaths due to AIDS, says the report. Keeping these statistics in mind, let's see what GIS has done and can do to tackle this global scourge as the world observes DEcember as AIDS awareness month. It is an undisputable fact that geographical dimensions are crucial in understanding patterns in the transmission of the disease and arrest its progress.

Developments in GIS technology have greatly enhanced our capacity to undertake spatial tasks needed for this purpose. But, surely GIS can do much more than mapping. It offers a wide range of analytical capabilities, which make it a powerful tool in the ongoing battle against AIDS.

1. It is extremely quick in presenting information in 3-D.
2. Its capacity to identify patterns and trends of the disease spread are unmatched.
3. It has an uncanny ability to dynamically depict changing distributions over time.
4. It help us analyse the relation between differnt element (different layers of information ) that influence the spread of the disease like location of highways, population density, cultural attributes, location of health centres and drug etc.
5. Disease diffusion models can also be built using GIS

Several GIS projects to map, analyse and prevent the spread of the disease at various levels - be it local, state, national or international- are currently underway.

Now it is essential to work out the ways to educate and mobilise public support for effective utilisation of GIS in the fight against AIDS and come up with innovative methods and technologies to help check this menace

DELHI STARTS USING GIS TO TRACK TAX DEFAULTERS

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi's (MCD) GIS mapping project to track defaulters of property tax has finally taken off.

The civic agency has set up a pilot project in the central zone through which the department will be creating a fresh database of the properties that need to be covered under the tax net.

ADVANCED DISASTER WARNING SYSTEM BY 2007

An advanced disaster warning system to be developed by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) - National Disaster Management Support System-will be in place in a year's time.

Under this system, a database would be created about flood-prone areas and their vulnerability to other disasters banking on their past history. Dr. G. Madhavan Nair, chairman ISRO, said while participating in the Asia-Pacific Remote Sensing Confernce here