Health

Soil-transmitted helminth infections are among the most common infections worldwide and affect the poorest and most deprived communities. They are transmitted by eggs present in human faeces which in turn contaminate soil in areas where sanitation is poor. The main species that infect people are the roundworm (Ascaris lumbricoides), the whipworm (Trichuris trichiura) and hookworms (Necator americanus and Ancylostoma duodenale). (https://www.who.int/) Global distribution and prevalence More than 1.5 billion people, or 24% of the world’s population, are infected with soil-transmitted helminth infections worldwide. Infections are widely distributed in tropical and subtropical areas, with the greatest numbers occurring in sub-Saharan Africa, the [...]

BACK IN MAY, Canada’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) shared news that an unmanned aerial vehicle, a UAV, or in common parlance a drone, had helped save the life of a car accident victim. The driver’s car flipped and he was left injured in near freezing temperatures during a Saskatchewan night. Authorities executed a ground search followed by a manned aerial search without finding the victim. Later, a helicopter drone with an infrared sensor pinpointed the driver’s warm body. Firefighters reached him moments later and he soon received medical care. Headlines announced that this event may be the first time a [...]

In perhaps its most frightening deployment yet, MapAction has once again demonstrated how its volunteers with standard geographic information technology can make a difference. Working with the UN or other NGOs the volunteers have worked since last September in Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Mali and Ghana, reports Nigel Woof, to support the international response to Ebola. The Ebola outbreak in a village called Meliandou in Southeast Guinea in December 2013 was not, of itself, a new phenomenon in Africa. The disease had first been described 37 years earlier, deep in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. Likewise, the employment [...]