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NASA Satellites to Predict Disease Outbreaks

Posted by samzenpus on from the doctor-eye-in-the-sky dept.

coondoggie writes "NASA and its Applied Sciences Program will be using 14 satellites to watch the Earth's environment and help predict and prevent infectious disease outbreaks around the world. Through orbiting satellites, data is collected daily to monitor environmental changes. That information is then passed on to agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Defense who then apply the data to predict and track disease outbreaks and assist in making public health policy decisions. The use of remote sensing technology helps scientists predict the outbreak of some of the most common and deadly infectious diseases such as Ebola, West Nile virus and Rift Valley Fever."

5 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. Ebola, West Nile, Rift Valley by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What do these things have in common? Africa.

    What's the deal with all these weird diseases originating in that dark continent? Why do we not get such terrible diseases from the jungles of South America, for instance?

  2. Hmmm.... by kcbanner · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That information is then passed on to agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Defense Hmmm. So they are doing hardcore surveillance, but thats ok because its for saving the world...why does it need to be sent to the DoD? Hmm.
    --
    Obligatory blog plug: http://www.caseybanner.ca/
  3. Open API? by hmccabe · · Score: 4, Funny

    I want a google maps mashup that tells me who in my neighborhood has herpes.

  4. something similar has done before by holywarrior21c · · Score: 4, Informative

    Live tropical sea surface temperature on the web http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003300/a003376/
    El nino linked to deadly disease http://www.spacedaily.com/news/pacific-02a.html

  5. Very Effective Use of Realtime Climate Data by JustinianV · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Often the ideal conditions for an outbreak of Malaria, West Nile, etc. are tied to climate factors such as rainfall and temperature. This is because of the nature of the transmission vectors of these diseases, namely insects, obviously the mosquito, particularly the Anopheles gambiae which carries the more deadly form of the malaria parasite. I've used interpolated averaged (read: doubly inaccurate) climate information (rainfall, temperature) to rather accurately map the areas where malarial outbreaks would occur in Eritrea (a country in NE Africa, next to Ethiopia). Creating a model utilizing real-time climate statistics aided by local reporting could seriously assist in the fight against malaria in sub-Saharan Africa, I only hope the information is put in the hands of the right people.