28 World Health • 49th Yeor, No.3, Moy-June 1996
Technology aids eradication campa1gn •
T
he very latest technology is being deployed in the bid to eradicate guinea-worm disease, also known as dracunculiasis.Computer-aided database manage- ment and mapping technologies have been applied in recent years to iden- tify the precise areas of the globe where transmission of the disease still continues, and to pinpoint the location of each endemic village.
This has then made it possible to improve the capabilities of health administrators to monitor the eradi- cation of guinea worm. "Before" and
"after" maps for the West African state of Burkina Faso, for instance, use red dots to represent villages still affected in 1994 and empty circles to show those which were affected in 1990. This gives an exact picture of the significant decrease in the num- ber of endemic villages between 1990 and 1994.
The same techniques have been used to map the locations of all vil- lages in which guinea-worm disease is endemic throughout the 17 African
In 1993, WHO and UNICEF formed a joint programme on map- ping and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for the Dracunculiasis Eradication Programme. Given the name DEPGIS, it was established within WHO's Division of Control of Tropical Diseases. The combination of WHO/UNICEF collaboration, broader applications of the technol- ogy, and increasing demand from countries has led to a steady evolu- tion of the capacities and objectives of the programme. Today, it is tech- nically feasible to map not only the villages affected by guinea-worm disease but virtually every village and hamlet in Africa, with precise information on their status with regard to selected diseases.
In each of the 17 endemic coun- tries, a GIS focal point and a team of GIS users have been trained; these users are from the ministries respon- sible for water, health and planning, but also include technical experts from WHO/UNICEF and certain
nongovernmental organizations. The programme has worked closely with the WHO/UNICEF Interagency Technical Teams for West and East Africa, who provide technical assis- tance to countries in putting into effect integrated community-based surveillance systems and in planning operational outreach strategies.
Within two years of the start of the operation, a data bank had been created containing public health information on more than 78 000 villages in 20 African countries.
While the programme continues to support the countries suffering from guinea worm, it will now also aim to expand its data management and mapping activities for disease sur- veillance to all countries in Africa south of the Sahara and to any other country which requests services.
In fact, the WHO/UNICEF Joint Programme on Data Management and Mapping now provides a broad range of services and products re- lated to the production and use of maps to support public health plan-
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Villages which had cases in 1990 and are naw free from guinea-worm disease.ning. These services and products are offered either directly or indi- rectly, under a subcontracting arrangement, through the programme team based within WHO's Division of Control of Tropical Diseases in Geneva. This team serves as a technical link between clients and service providers. • countries con-
cerned. The resulting map, showing a wide band across the continent from Senegal and Mauritania in the west to Kenya and Ethiopia in the east, high- lights regions where prevalence of the disease is highest, and therefore reveals at a glance where resources to combat it are most urgently
required. The high precision of computerized maps gives a clear image of the significant decrease of guinea- worm disease in most affected countries.
