Abstract

Diseases such as malaria and meningitis may be tackled either by drugs or by control and mitigation. A vaccine for malaria is currently being developed but it may be several years before a viable vaccine becomes widely available and will be initially expensive - making technologies that aid cost-effective deployment crucial in the future.

One proven means of observing and mitigating the dynamics of malaria and meningitis epidemics is using remotely sensed proxies of the environmental variables that influence these diseases directly. A remote sensing system capable of high-resolution imagery and within a framework of disaster and mitigation activities would potentially be very useful. Where NIR, red and green bands allow dust, vegetation, water bodies and visual assessment of affected areas (particularly during and after storm events) it would be useful to assess the applicability of these data for augmentation into existing technology programmes (such as seasonal climate forecasting, vaccine development and other remote sensing systems.

These variables have been previously studied using data from METEOSAT and NOAA-AVHRR that have been widely available throughout the African continent. Problems with these existing systems tend to be related to their relatively crude spatial resolution (nominally 5km and l.l km respectively).

DMC data will be used in three specific phases:

1. Pilot exploration of data and its potential applicability for health.

2. How data and its processed products might be augmented into existing and future technologies such as seasonal climate forecasting, malaria modelling and EO.

3. Involvement of health end-users in Africa and WHO to ascertain how the information from DMC can be used to enhance cost-effectiveness of intervention and mitigation activities.