Electronic Monitoring and Mapping Assists in Malaria Management

A Geographic Information System (GIS)-driven digital map of past and predicted malaria outbreak hotspots is being used as part of the Indian national malaria control program for timely preventive action.

Researchers from the Indian National Institute of Malaria Research (NIMR; Delhi, India) used the GIS based system to pinpoint trouble spots in the malaria-stricken Madhya Pradesh (MP) region tribal world. In MP the presence of two highly efficient disease vectors (the mosquitoes Anopheles culicifacies and Anopheles fluviatilis), a thinly populated area, linguistic problems, a poorly clothed ethnic tribe scattered in fields and forest, a high degree of mobility, poor health infrastructure, and increasing drug resistance among malaria-inducing Plasmodium falciparum are some of the factors that maintain malaria as an urgent public health problem. For the study, district- and block-wise geo referenced maps of the MP region were prepared using a 2001 census administrative atlas, with overlaying and integration of thematic layers such as general population, tribal population, and others. After implementation of hotspot management based on the GIS system, parasitological data showed that 96,042 malaria cases in 2006 were reduced to 90,829 in 2007, with a further reduction manifested in 2008. The study was published in the open access International Journal of Health Geographics, a publication of BioMed Central.

"GIS can dynamically map malaria hot spots and also point out the geographic locations of hot pockets within to carry out accelerated focused malaria control," said lead author Aruna Srivastava, Ph.D., and colleagues of the NIMR. "The main advantage of the GIS platform is fast data updating - as soon as data is entered, revised maps highlight the trouble spots."

A GIS captures, stores, analyzes, manages, and presents data that is linked to location. Technically, GIS is an information system which includes mapping software and applications with remote sensing, land surveying, aerial photography, mathematics, photogrammetry, geography, and other tools that can be implemented with appropriate applications that allow users to create interactive queries, analyze spatial information, edit data, generate maps, and present the results of all these operations graphically. A further advantage of using a GIS-based health system is that once the infrastructure is ready, it is easy to convert the system for other disease such as filariasis, dengue fever, bubonic plague, or others.

Related Links:
Indian National Institute of Malaria Research