Disaster Risk Reduction

How Maps Could Help Fight Ebola

SKY NEWS                                             Oct. 0, 2014

By Tom Cheshire, Technology Correspondent

LONDON -- Better maps could have helped contain the deadly Ebola virus, according to Medecins Sans Frontieres.

Ivan Gaytan, technology advisor to MSF, told Sky News the disease is "preventable" and could have been "easier to contain" if there was more knowledge of the region.

He said: "In any country where Ebola or any other infectious disease arrives, if you already have a good map which actually reflects the way people describe geography, you set up your clinical activities to take that data in the first place in the right way."

MSF, also known as Doctors Without Borders, will launch a project next month called Missing Maps, which lets anyone, anywhere in the world, annotate maps to show dwellings and infrastructure.

THE ECONOMIST                          Oct. 25, 2014

With at least 4,500 people dead, public-health authorities in west Africa and worldwide are struggling to contain Ebola. Borders have been closed, air passengers screened, schools suspended. But a promising tool for epidemiologists lies unused: mobile cell phone data.

When people make mobile-phone calls, the network generates a call data record (CDR) containing such information as the phone numbers of the caller and receiver, the time of the call and the tower that handled it—which gives a rough indication of the device’s location. This information provides researchers with an insight into mobility patterns...

REUTERS                                         OCT. 24, 2014

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON  - The Obama administration is considering quarantining healthcare workers returning to the United States from the Ebola hot zone of West Africa, after a New York doctor who treated Ebola patients there tested positive for the virus.

Tom Skinner, a spokesman for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told Reuters on Friday that quarantine is among a number of options being discussed by officials from across the administration.

"There are a number of options being discussed pertaining to the monitoring and mobility of healthcare workers who are returning to the United States from affected countries," Skinner said.

WHO    GENEVA                                                                         Oct. 23, 2014

 The WHO Ebola Emergency Committee statement issued today, following its meetings this week, said exit screening in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone remains critical for reducing the exportation of Ebola cases.

The statement said "States should maintain and reinforce high-quality exit screening of all persons at international airports, seaport, and major land crossings, for unexplained febrile illness consistent with potential Ebola infection. The exit screening should consist of, at a minimum, a questionnaire, a temperature measurement and, if fever is discovered, an assessment of the risk that the fever is caused by Ebola Virus Disease (EVD). States should collect data from their exit screening processes, monitor their results, and share these with WHO on a regular basis and in a timely fashion. This will increase public confidence and provide important information to other States."

The report also encouraged States that have recently introduced entry screening measures to should share their experiences and lessons learned.

...The Committee reiterated its recommendation that there should be no general ban on international travel or trade.