As the number of people who have contracted HIV has gone from 33 million people worldwide in 2007 to a staggering 38.6 million in 2009 the research continues to find a way to slow the spread of this pandemic. GIS in the past has been used as a public health resource to map health events to the surrounding environment, existing health and social infrastructures. Given the first use of spatial referencing used as a health care tool by Dr. Snow to stop the spread of Cholera. It’s now proposed that existing GIS technology may be utilized in containing the spread of HIV/AIDS. “World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNCF), US Center for Diseases, United Nations Member States, and Public Health Agencies of different countries have been widely using GIS at large in epidemiology.”
The uses would include but not be limited to disease mapping (used to estimate the risk of a disease spreading across a geographical area), disease clustering (helps decide where it may be important to asses a disease map, as well as where clusters are located), and ecological analysis (analysis of distribution in relation to source, as well as ‘geo-applications’ – disaster prevention, early warning and emergency fields).
http://pdn.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=MiamiImageURL&_cid=272371&_user=1515990&_pii=S1532046409000586&_check=y&_origin=search&_zone=rslt_list_item&_coverDate=2009-08-31&wchp=dGLzVBA-zSkWb&md5=671f7c7e22ad2736d1600dc6c3a57ea0/1-s2.0-S1532046409000586-main.pdf
Written by: Rashmi Kandwal *,
P.K. Garg, R.D. Garg
This could be a helpful start to trying to reduce the number of people in the world with AIDS, or diseases in general. Not only can you find the clusters and how the diseases are spreading over time, but you can use the map to pinpoint where you should start targeting the problem and getting rid of it.
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