Satellite imagery to fight diseases in Gujarat

Saying that this could help take preventive action, the state has suggested to the Centre that the project can be adopted for implementation at the national level in view of the spread of these diseases increasing every year.

Talking to The Indian Express, Gujarat Minister for Health Ashok Bhatt said his department also wanted to set up a vector-borne disease forecasting centre which would carry out mapping of water bodies in the state through satellite images on a regular basis. “We are roping in the Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Applications and Geoinformatics (BISAG) for the satellite images,” Bhatt said.

The idea evolved following a workshop between Dr M J Bouma, consultant to University of Michigan, USA, Prof Andrew P Dobson, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, USA and Mercedes M Pascal, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Michigan University with the state officers from the department of Malaria Control, which was held couple of months ago. Bhatt said that the apart from synthetic pesticides to kill vectors, efficacy of neem Oil was also being explored in this direction.

“While measures can be directly implemented by the state Government for open water bodies which serve as breeding ground for Anopheles mosquitoes, community participation is needed to fight the menace of Aedes mosquito, which breed in clear water within homes,” Bhatt said, adding that to combat the threat, the department was preparing a Container Index (CI), House Index (HI) and Bratou Index (BI) to identify areas needing intervention.

“For preparing such indices, our workers are carrying out door to door surveys and checking out containers and houses,” said a senior health official, adding that apart from preparing the CI and HI, data was also being compiled to identify the number of containers breeding mosquitoes per one hundred houses.