A team of US-based scientists and engineers has developed a mobile application that predicts and maps cholera, a contagious and sometimes fatal disease that has in the past killed millions of people and recently seen a new surge.
The team said that the CholeraMap application displays and publishes colorful maps highlighting areas that may be at risk of contracting the waterborne disease.
“Instead of relying on hard-to-obtain environmental and hydro-climatic data, this study provides a new opportunity to use remote sensing data sets to design and operate an early warning system for diseases,” the team said in a research paper published in the journal GeoHealth of the American Geophysical Union. .
The app is being used in rural areas vulnerable to cholera in Bangladesh, in areas that lack an early warning system to inform people that an outbreak of the disease may be imminent.
Statistics and numbers
About 1.3 billion people worldwide live in areas where cholera can be contracted, and the disease – an infection of the intestines spread by contaminated water or contaminated food – is becoming more common again, although it can be prevented.
Ghana experienced a cholera outbreak last month, with dozens of cases reported. Citing official national health data from around the world, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control reported on October 25 that more than 450,000 cases of the disease have been recorded this year.
In September, the World Health Organization said the world saw a 13% increase in cholera cases in 2023 compared to 2022, while deaths from the disease rose 71% to more than 4,000.
Cases were reported in 45 countries in 2023, the World Health Organization said, but with the worrying change being that for the first time deaths due to infections that can be easily treated in “community areas” – that is, outside hospitals or medical facilities – have been recorded in several countries. .
Cholera had claimed an additional 2,400 lives by August this year, according to the World Health Organization, which works with the Global Cholera Task Force and is the provider of a cholera mobile alert app for health workers.