Abstract
Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) continues to constitute immense public health problems and be an obstacle to socioeconomic development in India. The scrutiny of this disease remains a necessary step in its control, eradication, and prevention. Space technologies proffer new opportunities for rapid appraisal of endemic areas, stipulation of trustworthy estimation of populations at risk, prediction of disease distributions in areas that lack baseline data and are difficult to access, and guiding intervention strategies. Here, we focus on the epidemiology and control of VL in India and review remote sensing (RS) and GIS applications to date. For the original evidenced report, a search was done on electronic databases of PubMed, ERMSS, EQUEST and from online Internet searching to come across the recent research problems. We discuss the previous work conducted in this field, outlined potential new applications of GIS and RS techniques, and utilization of emerging satellite information, as they hold a promising area to further enhance VL risk mapping and prediction. Finally, we concluded with a discussion of strategies to overcome some of the perspective challenges of GIS and RS applications for VL control, so that supplementary and continued progress can be made to control this disease in India and elsewhere.
Highlights
Visceral leishmaniasis (VL), a vector-borne disease, has been endemic in India since ancient times [1, 2]
Leishmania donovani parasites are the causal agents of visceral leishmaniasis, a group of protozoan disease transmitted to humans by the female phlebotomine sand y (Phlebotomus argentipes)
From 1987 through 2011, a total of 7, 60, 432 kala-azar cases were reported in India; the data were collected by the National Institute of Communicable Disease (NICD), Directorate General of Health Services, and National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP), Government of India
Summary
Visceral leishmaniasis (VL), a vector-borne disease, has been endemic in India since ancient times [1, 2]. At present, it is a serious public health problem in Indian subcontinent, especially in Bihar state. From 2005, VL cases were reported compulsorily in India according to the National Vector Borne Disease Control Program (NVBDCP). We confer current research needs and conclude that further progress in GIS and RS holds promise to conquer some of the perspective challenges in the control of VL in India, which is likely to have broad applicability to other VL-endemic areas of the world
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