1.

INTRODUCTION

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
1.1 Background of the study
1.2 Problem definition
1.3 General objective
1.4 Specific objective
1.5 Research structure

1.1 Background of the study:

The research is initially designed to explore variations in Malaria and Dengue
occurrences and correlate them to environmental factors existent in Howrah district.
Based on the results and predictive models, the researcher aims to map the disease on a
real time basis.
Recently, Geographical Information System (GIS) has emerged as an innovative and
important component of many projects in public health and epidemiology. One of the
most useful functions of GIS in epidemiology continues to be its utility in basic
mapping. GIS may also involve more sophisticated spatial analysis of disease occurrence
and contributing environmental factors.
The application of remote sensing and GIS has been significantly developed over the
past 25 years for ecological modeling with special emphasis on vectors and vector-borne
diseases. These studies were conducted on the appreciation of remote sensing and GIS
applications to the study of vectors biodiversity, vector presence, vector abundance and
the vector-borne diseases with respect to space and time. This study was made for
appreciation of remote sensing and GIS application to review and update the studies of
ecological modeling of vector-borne diseases. A number of traditional, conventional,
and modern scientific methods are being applied by the experts, specialists, or scientists
working on vector-borne diseases control. The traditional method of vector-borne
diseases control is based on the empirical knowledge. However, conventional methods
are laborious, expensive, erroneous, and time consuming. By applying the remote
sensing and GIS techniques for mapping vector habitats, vectors presence, abundance
and density we can assess the risk of vector-borne diseases, disease transmission, spatial
diffusion. We can find the root cause of the disease infection, and source of infection.

The study of spatial epidemiology branches out in three broad divisions:

Cluster Analysis This group of techniques provides information on clustering and is

often used to find possible associations between a disease and the environment.

Geographic correlation studies This group studies the variation in exposure to

environmental or social variables.

Diffusion studies - these techniques are not trying to identify clusters or a correlation
with the environment but assume that a disease relocates to new locations. Diffusion
analysis focus on the speed and direction of spread over time. This type of study is often
conducted for infectious diseases.

1.2 Problem definition:

The change of vector borne disease epidemic transmission in to the endemic situation in
the country has been caused by the land use / land cover changes, regional climate
changes, sea change in population, urban agglomeration, industrial development and
the past development of towns. With this exponential expansion, the disease epidemics
have been steadily increased too. Diseases such as, malaria and dengue, as a result of
increase in both mosquito nuisances and disease transmissions have become crucial to
public health and very poses a big challenging problem in a country like India.

According to the World Malaria Report 2014, 22% (275.5m) of Indias population
live in high transmission (> 1 case per 1000 population) areas, 67% (838.9m) live in low
transmission (01 cases per 1000 population) areas and 11% (137.7m) live in
malaria-free (0 cases) areas. In 2013, 0.88 million cases have been recorded, with 128
million tests being conducted on the suspected cases, with P. falciparum causing 53%
and P. vivax causing 47% of the infections. The incidence of malaria in India accounted
for 58% of cases in the South East Asia Region of WHO.

At present, official figures for malaria in India, available at NVBDCP,[8] indicate

0.71.6 million confirmed cases and 400-1,000 deaths annually.

Dengue fever is a severe, flu-like illness that affects infants, young children and adults,
but seldom causes death. It is transmitted by the bite of a mosquito infected with one of
the four dengue virus.

Dengue is the fastest growing mosquito-borne disease across the world today, causing
nearly 400 million infections every year. In the last 50 years, dengue has spread from
being present in a handful of countries to being endemic in 128 countries; dengue
incidence has increased 30-fold in this time period. Dengue is endemic in all states and
union territories (UTs) of India. In 2015, a total of 99 913 dengue cases and 220 deaths
were reported from 35 states and UTs.

1.3 General objective

The main objective is to identify and characterize the spatial distribution of
environmental factors that increase the risk of Malaria and Dengue infection in the
Howrah district area of India using GIS, remote sensing, statistical methods and map its
results on a real-time basis.

1.4 Specific objective

1. To map out potential Malaria and Dengue causing factors in the study area from
LISS-III and WiFS sources.

2. Visualize relation between Malaria, Dengue incidences, water bodies and refuse
dumps using GIS.

3. Determine the spatial relationship between disease incidence and potential high risk
zones using spatial statistics.

4. Store the gathered results on a distributed GIS geo-server and provide access to any
user to visualize the disease pattern on a real time basis.

1.5 Research structure

This Thesis consists of 6 chapters as categorized below:
Chapter 1: Introduction
This chapter contains the motivation and problem statement, research objectives and
methodology.

Chapter 2: Literature review

This chapter contains literature about dengue and malaria, previous studies and
analyses carried out and methods of spatial epidemiology.

Chapter 3: Study Area and dataset preparation

This chapter consists of study area, description of data sources and preparation of
workflows.

Chapter 4: Research methodologies

This chapter consists of methods and tools applied in the study to produce outcomes.

Chapter 5: Results and analysis

Chapter 6: Conclusions and discussions