Epidemic

Within the DEVELOP National Program of NASA this project aimed at identifying West Nile Virus (WNV) and Encephalitis (EEE) risk maps for Mobile County, Alabama. Probable WNV and EEE infected reservoir habitats were identified using Terra ASTER and Landsat 4 and 5 imagery. Through combination with census data it was possible to identify areas where a chain of infection is present.

The UN-SPIDER Regional Support Office (RSO) in Romania is hosted by the Romanian Space Agency (ROSA).  The cooperation agreement between ROSA and UNOOSA was signed on occasion of the 52nd COPUOS, 4 June 2009.

Established in 1991, by the Government Decision no. 923/ 20 Nov 1995, ROSA is an independent public institution.

The mission of the Agency:

• to coordinate the national space research and applications programs
• to promote space development
• to be the Government representative in the international space cooperation
• to develop specific project oriented research

ROSA is authorized to establish research and development centres oriented on specific objectives of the Romanian Space Programme.

The spatial distribution of American visceral leishmaniasis (VL) was studied within the context of the environmental characteristics of northwest Bahia State in Brazil during an epidemic year. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) were used to characterize the landscape epidemiology of VL in order to identify and map high risk areas and endemic zones in a northwestern Bahia study area. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was shown to be one of the most important risk factors in the area of study. Low NDVI values were related to high numbers of sand flies and high numbers of human and canine VL positive cases. Caatinga vegetation type was the dominant vegetation type in the endemic area. The use of RS and GIS allowed the identification of classes of VL risk that may be useful information to guide control program interventions.

This paper presents an analysis of the interaction between the various variables associated with Rift Valley fever (RVF) such as the mosquito vector, available hosts and rainfall distribution. To that end, the varying zones potentially occupied by mosquitoes (ZPOM), rainfall events and pond dynamics, and the associated exposure of hosts to the RVF virus by Aedes vexans, were analyzed in the Barkedji area of the Ferlo, Senegal, during the 2003 rainy season. Ponds were identified by remote sensing using a high-resolution SPOT-5 satellite image. Additional data on ponds and rainfall events from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission were combined with in-situ entomological and limnimetric measurements, and the localization of vulnerable ruminant hosts (data derived from QuickBird satellite). Since “Ae. vexans productive events” are dependent on the timing of rainfall for their embryogenesis (six days without rain are necessary to trigger hatching), the…

Environmental vector-borne diseases are plaguing much of the world and are a serious concern on a global scale. Many of these diseases are clearly associated with specific environmental conditions and landscape variables. The science and technology associated with remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) are suitable for identifying these environmental targets. Since vector-borne diseases are most often found in tropical environments and during rainy seasons with persistent cloud cover conditions, radar is an important sensor for monitoring and mapping the environmental indicators of disease. Preliminary investigations using RADARSAT-1 C-band horizontal transmit, horizontal receive (C-HH) imagery have proven especially useful for identifying wetland habitats and flooded areas. It is anticipated that the advancements associated with upcoming RADARSAT-2 sensors will improve the science of mapping vector-borne disease risk in tropical areas, particularly…

Malaria remains one of the greatest killers of human beings, particularly in the developing world. The World Health Organization has estimated that over one million cases of Malaria are reported each year, with more than 80% of these found in Sub-Saharan Africa. The anopheline mosquito transmits malaria, and breeds in areas of shallow surface water that are suitable to the mosquito and parasite development. These environmental factors can be detected with satellite imagery, which provide high spatial and temporal coverage of most of the earth’s surface. The combined use of remote sensing and GIS provides a strong tool for monitoring environmental conditions that are conducive to malaria, and mapping the disease risk to human populations. Since many vector-borne diseases such as malaria are prevalent in tropical areas, persistent cloud cover often presents a challenge to remote sensing operations.Radar remote sensing has the capability of…

The control of epidemic malaria is a priority for the international health community and specific target for the early detection and effective control of epidemics. Malaria has reemerged as a major public health problem in the world during past few years. This study attempts to identify the potential factors for malaria epidemic in forest hills in Bangladesh. It estimates the correlation between various environmental factors that contribute to malaria transmission and shows the application of remote sensing data for improved predictions of malaria epidemics in Bandarban district of Bangladesh which has the highest frequency of malaria cases in the country. An algorithm uses the Vegetation Health (VH) Indices (Vegetation Condition Index (VCI) and Temperature Condition Index (TCI)) computed for each week over a period of 14 years ( 1992-2005) from Advance Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data flown on NOAA afternoon polar orbiting satellite. The weekly VH indices…

The relationship between the risk of hantaviral pulmonary syndrome (HPS), as estimated from satellite imagery, and local rodent populations was examined. HPS risk, predicted before rodent sampling, was highly associated with the abundance of Peromyscus maniculatus, the reservoir of Sin Nombre virus (SNV). P. maniculatus were common in high-risk sites, and populations in high-risk areas were skewed toward adult males, the subclass most frequently infected with SNV. In the year after an El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), captures of P. maniculatus increased only in high-risk areas. During 1998, few sites had infected mice, but by 1999, 18/20 of the high-risk sites contained infected mice and the crude prevalence was 30.8%. Only 118 of the low-risk sites contained infected rodents, and the prevalence of infection was lower (8.3%). Satellite imagery identified environmental features associated with SNV transmission within its reservoir population, but at least 2 years of…

New human cases of tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) have recently been recorded outside the recognised foci of this disease, i.e. in the province of Trento in northern Italy. In order to predict the highest risk areas for increased TBE virus activity, we have combined cross-sectional serological data, obtained from 459 domestic goats, with analysis of the autumnal cooling rate based on Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) land surface temperature (LST) data. A significant relationship between finding antibodies against the virus in serum (seroprevalence) in goats and the autumnal cooling rate was detected, indicating that the transmission intensity of the virus does not only vary spatially, but also in relation to climatic factors. Virus seroprevalence in goats was correlated with the occurrence of TBE in humans and also with the average number of forestry workers' tick bites, demonstrating that serological screening of domestic animals, combined with…

An example is given of the application of remotely-sensed, satellite data to the problems of predicting the distribution and abundance of tsetse flies in West Africa. The distributions of eight species of tsetse, Glossina morsitans, G. longipalpis, G. palpalis, G. tachinoides, G. pallicera, G. fusca, G. nigrofusca and G. medicorum in Côte d'Ivoire and Burkina Faso, were analysed using discriminant analysis applied to temporal Fourier-processed surrogates for vegetation, temperature and rainfall derived from meteorological satellites. The vegetation and temperature surrogates were the normalized difference vegetation index and channel-4-brightness temperature, respectively, from the advanced, very-high-resolution radiometers on board the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's polar-orbiting, meteorological satellites. For rainfall the surrogate was the Cold-Cloud-Duration (CCD) index derived from the geostationary, Meteosat satellite series. The…