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How Computer Modelers Took On the Ebola Outbreak

submitted by Sarah Slaughter         

           

At The Epidemic’s Epicenter: A Liberian child sits in an Ebola isolation ward housing people who might have contracted the contagious disease.  Photo: John Moore/Getty Images

Did real-time epidemic modeling save lives in West Africa?

spectrum.ieee.org - by David Brown - May 28, 2015

. . . “agent-based” models will give a more nuanced picture of how pathogens affect and sicken a population. “This is the wave of the future,” says Stephen Eubank, deputy director of the Virginia Tech lab. “It’s going to take a concerted effort to gather the data and the expertise. But it’s going to happen.”

And so, too, will another Ebola outbreak.

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United Nations General Assembly Adopts Resolution on Global Geospatial Information Management

                                                    

un.org - February 26, 2015

Delegates in the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a consensus resolution last week, by which they addressed global geospatial information management. The document entitled “A global geodetic reference frame for sustainable development” (A/RES/69/266) urges States to voluntarily implement open sharing of geodetic data, standards and conventions, inviting them to improve national geodetic infrastructure and engage in multilateral cooperation that addressed infrastructure gaps and duplications, towards the development of a more sustainable geodetic reference frame.

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CDC - Mapping for Ebola: A Collaborative Effort

                

cdc.gov - January 14, 2015

One of the difficulties faced by teams responding to the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa is identifying individuals and communities residing in remote areas. Existing maps of these regions either do not exist or are inadequate or outdated. This means that basic data like location of houses, buildings, villages, and roads are not easily accessible, and case finding and contact tracing can be extremely difficult.

To help aid the outbreak response effort, volunteers from around the world are using an open-source online mapping platform called OpenStreetMap (OSM) to create detailed maps and map data of Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and parts of Mali.

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The toll of a tragedy

An infographic of the toll of the Ebola outbreak.

Image: An infographic of the toll of the Ebola outbreak.

economist.com - October 31st 2014

The first reported case in the Ebola outbreak ravaging west Africa dates back to December 2013, in Guéckédou, a forested area of Guinea near the border with Liberia and Sierra Leone. Travellers took it across the border: by late March, Liberia had reported eight suspected cases and Sierra Leone six. By the end of June 759 people had been infected and 467 people had died from the disease, making this the worst ever Ebola outbreak.

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Fighting Ebola with Data, Satellites and Drones

Healthcare workers in Sierra Leone spray disinfectant to prevent the spread of the Ebola virus in Kenema, on September 24, 2014.

Image: Healthcare workers in Sierra Leone spray disinfectant to prevent the spread of the Ebola virus in Kenema, on September 24, 2014.

defenseone.com - September 25th, 2014 - Patrick Tucker

Current Centers of Disease Control estimates suggest that the disease could infect more than 1.4 million people by January. To limit Ebola’s spread, researchers need better on-the-ground intelligence about where it’s moving. But the virus’s deadly mortality rate, 70 percent for this strain, makes up-close observation as difficult as gathering data on a deadly human adversary. 

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Can Social Media Help Contain Ebola?

By Simon Engler - SEP 4, 2014 - 05:06 PM

Patrick Sawyer, Nigeria's first Ebola patient, collapsed at the international airport in Lagos on July 20. This Wednesday, more than six weeks later, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that it was monitoring at least 200 Nigerians for infection related to Sawyer's case. Sawyer, a Liberian-American who had traveled from Monrovia, had carried the often-fatal disease to Africa's most populous country, hundreds of miles from its origin. It was as if he had slipped through a crowd.

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/09/04/the_ebola_outbreak_is_out_of_control_can_it_be_tracked_remotely

 

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Crowdsourcing a Crisis Map of UAV/Aerial Videos for Disaster Response

The UAV Map, which will go live shortly, is inspired by Travel by Drone Map displayed above.

Image: The UAV Map, which will go live shortly, is inspired by Travel by Drone Map displayed above.

irevolution.net - June 18th, 2014 - Patrick Meier

Journalists and citizen journalists are already using small UAVs during disasters. And some are also posting their aerial videos online: Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda), Moore Tornado, Arkansas Tornado and recent floods in Florida, for example. Like social media, this new medium—user-generated (aerial) content—can be used by humanitarian organizations to augment their damage assessments and situational awareness.

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Humanitarians in the Sky

 submitted by Luis Kun

     

Lawmakers need to ensure their new regulations do not run counter to the humanitarian imperative.
Photograph: CorePhil/DSI

Drones are already a game-changer for disaster response

theguardian.com - by Patrick Meier - June 6, 2014

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) capture images faster, cheaper, and at a far higher resolution than satellite imagery. And as John DeRiggi speculates in "Drones for Development?" these attributes will likely lead to a host of applications in development work. In the humanitarian field that future is already upon us — so we need to take a rights-based approach to advance the discussion, improve coordination of UAV flights, and to promote regulation that will ensure safety while supporting innovation.

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New Field Guide Explores Open Data Innovations in Disaster Risk and Resilience

Citizen mapping can help pinpoint damage and locate risks, such as hillside instability that could threaten communities.  GFDRR

worldbank.org - March 19, 2014

  • The new World Bank Group field guide provides practical guidance for governments and organizations as they build their own open data programs for addressing disaster risk and resilience.
  • It shows how participatory mapping projects can fill in government data gaps and keep existing data relevant as cities rapidly expand.
  • Among the guide’s success stories are projects that quickly mapped disaster damage in the Philippines after Typhoon Yolanda and helped improve urban planning in Kathmandu.

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CLICK HERE -  Open Data for Resilience Initiative: Field Guide (134 page .PDF file)

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