Satellites to Search for Ebola Virus

A new project of the European Space Agency (ESA, Paris, France; www.esa.int) employs satellites to predict and help combat epidemic outbreaks as well as look for the origin of the Ebola virus.

The jungle-based organism causing Ebola hemorrhagic fever has not yet been identified. To assist search efforts, detailed vegetation maps of Congo and Gabon will be created in 2004 with satellite images as part of a new ESA Data User Element project called Epidemio, developing Earth Observation (EO) services for epidemiologists.

The International Center for Medical Research (CIRMF), based in Gabon, will combine EO data with field results within a geographic information system (GIS). The goal is to locate particular environmental characteristics associated with infected sites where either dead animals are found or local people have acquired Ebola antibodies. The satellite data will be updated monthly to gain more clues. EO images will also be provided to the World Health Organization (WHO, Geneva, Switzerland) for use in the GIS software used by public health officials in more than 70 countries.

"Local maps are often 30 years out of data, so we've asked for high-resolution images of cities from Casablanca in Morocco to Vientiane in Laos, to help us better plan medical responses such as locating urban clinics,” said Jen-Pierre Meert, of WHO.




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