Digital Health And The Ebola Epidemic: How Not To Let It Go Viral

More than 1,500 deaths and 2,500 people sickened – that’s the recent account of the ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) raging in the country since last August, and recently declared a public health emergency of international concern. Experts say efforts to contain the virus are hindered by biological, public health, political, and cultural issues, but we looked around what digital health technologies could do to mitigate the spread and the devastation of the infectious disease. The Spaghetti-like virus… The lethal Ebola virus first appeared in 1976 around a river in Congo – it was named after this watercourse – but its exact origins are still unclear. The tiny pathogen looks like a particular type of Spaghetti under the microscope, but its behavior is merciless and bloody. It works its ways into cells, creates countless copies of itself, and destroys the connections between tissues, causing organ failure and leaky blood vessels, essentially dismantling bodies from the inside out. In its most extreme form, the viral hemorrhagic fever leads to uncontrollable bleeding and death. The virus is transmitted to people from wild animals (such as fruit bats, porcupines, and non-human primates) and then spreads in the human population through direct contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people, and with surfaces and materials (e.g. bedding, clothing) contaminated with these fluids. That means Ebola is not t...
Source: The Medical Futurist - Category: Information Technology Authors: Tags: Future of Medicine Africa AI artificial intelligence Congo digital digital health digital maps disease disease outbreak ebola epidemic Innovation technology Source Type: blogs