With the number of chikungunya and dengue cases on a high, the government is planning to set up Geographical Information System (GIS) for tracking the vector-borne diseases across the state, Public Health department officials said.
“We are planning an Online Disease Surveillance and Prediction System with the help of Tamil Nadu State Council for Science and Technology (TSCST). Tamil Nadu is the first state in the country to put such a system in operation,” an official told PTI.
The system would also be used to track swine flu, a TSCST member said.
Public health department and council would create an emergency Response Management Mechanism at the council’s office at Chennai. “We will help the government in the surveillance, so that the department will be able to take preventive steps on time with the help of online prediction and emergency response management of vector-borne diseases and swine flu using GIS applications,” said another TSCST member.
Meanwhile, the officials of the Centre for Research in Medical Entomology, a wing of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), said they would be providing necessary entomological and epidemiological data.
The ICMR officials said the system would help to immediately predict any outbreak, as data would include symptoms, time, location of outbreak and its intensity.
