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An Analysis of Global Distribution of the High Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) Using Geographic Information Systems
Jothiganesh.S
Remote sensing & GIS Field, School of Engineering & Technology,
Thailand
Email: Jothiganesh.Sundaram@ait.ac.th
Nitin K.Tripathi
Marc Souris
Emergence and Epidemic of diseases are still threatening the world even though there is more advancement and innovation in medical technologies. The recent outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza occurred after mid 1997 in South East Asian countries and later it started spreading widely into all parts of the world. This disease affected mainly chickens, ducks and rarely swine & humans. Millions of chickens are culled in poultry farms as precaution to stop the epidemics, even many birds are killed without infection. It is suspected that it may lead to the global pandemic for humans. The effective usage of Geographic Information Systems provides feasible solution for analyzing, planning, risk assessment of health issues in large scale. In this study factors such as geographical features, climatic factors: temperature, humidity, rainfall, population; environmental factors: migratory wild birds route; trade activities of livestock; occurrence, sequence and spread of outbreak is analyzed. Apart from the above mentioned factors the trade activities of country in pathogen carrier will also be related to the outbreak of the disease using geoinformatics. The consequence of HPAI virus is unpredictable, whereas H5N1 subtype virus is responsible for current threat. The analysis of temperature, rainfall and humidity during the outbreak time gives an idea about the occurrence and spread of the disease. The migratory wild birds are also another reason to understand the spread of virus because it carries the virus without infected and spread along its migration route. The socio economical factors are also analyzed because trade activities may be a cause for some countries. All together it is integrated in to a database for spatial analysis in Geographic Information System for integrated analysis to serve as Disease Information System of high pathogenic avian influenza.
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