Tuberculosis Prevention Model in Developing Countries based on Geospatial, Cloud and Web Technologies

Innocent Mwila,Jackson Phiri

doi:10.14569/ijacsa.2020.0110129

Innocent Mwila, Jackson Phiri

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.14569/ijacsa.2020.0110129

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Abstract

Information is important when making decisions. Decisions which are based on gut feeling and made in the absence of evidence always tend to be less effective in most situations. This is also the case when it comes to Tuberculosis (TB) disease control and prevention intervention planning and implementation. The lack of evidence-based information upon which decisions for action to help with the prevention of spread of TB has proved to be less effective in the prevention of the disease as TB keeps spreading. The aim of this paper was to design and develop a prototype system that would provide TB program managers with information and tools which can be used to make decisions which can effectively influence the fight against the spread of TB through the application of cloud computing, geospatial data analysis and web technologies. The system would improve disease monitoring and tracking through the use of the identified technologies, by displaying the geographical distribution of TB cases in the communities on a mapping application as well as providing reports which TB program managers can use to make decisions when planning and implementing disease control and prevention activities.

Highlights

TB is one of the leading infectious diseases in the world with an annual average of 10 million cases being reported between 2016 and 2018, and causing an average of 1.4 million deaths in the same period which translates into 25% of deaths globally [1][2][3][4] and making TB the number one cause of death by a single infectious agent [1]
This paper looks at how cloud computing, geospatial data analysis and web technologies can be applied to empower TB program managers with information needed to make decisions as they plan and implement disease control and prevention activities
The paper established factors which escalate the spread of TB in Zambia and designed a model that would be used to monitor and track the spreading of TB in the communities based on cloud computing, geospatial data analysis and web technologies, and based on the designed model, developed a prototype system to help with decision-making in the fight against the spreading of TB

Summary

Introduction

TB is one of the leading infectious diseases in the world with an annual average of 10 million cases being reported between 2016 and 2018, and causing an average of 1.4 million deaths in the same period which translates into 25% of deaths globally [1][2][3][4] and making TB the number one cause of death by a single infectious agent [1]. TB caused 17,000 deaths in Zambia in 2015 [5] and an average of 36,000 cases have been recorded annually between 2016 and 2018 in the country [6]. TB is an infectious disease which spreads from an infected person to the non-infected, and one way to prevent the spreading of the disease is by identifying individuals who are infected and put measures in place to curtail the spread, to protect the ones not infected and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can be utilized for this purpose, to improve surveillance [8]. ICTs have been used in different ways to improve disease surveillance [11][12] and thereby preventing further spreading or at least reducing the rate at which some diseases are spread

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