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GIS to the Rescue – Controlling the Killer AIDS
Sudeep.K.V
Head – Marketing
IES Geospatial Systems India PVT LTD.
Email: sudeep@iesgeospatial.com
Introduction
This paper presents the use of GIS in controlling and monitoring the spread of AIDS by providing information well in advance on the potential budding high transmission sites. It also helps the authorities in the planning process by identifying suitable sites to set up facilities required in the fight against AIDS. The central idea is to make the fight against AIDS pro-active rather than reactive.
GIS and Mapping technology are used to graphically represent the data and derive relations between the transmission sites and other parameters. This paper attempts to explore the powers of simple thematic mapping and map query. Thematic mapping and query when combined with simple functions offered by most GIS software become an unmatched combination of technology to provide valuable solutions to the complex problems faced by health authorities today.
This very technology is used in this paper to analyze and thematically map HIV/AIDS data of transmission areas from 14 provinces within Kerala in correspondence with their local population statistics to cartographically portray the demographic consequences that HIV/AIDS would evoke at a provincial level. We begin from a global perspective and focus down to specific area and refine our finding and provide recommendations. To keep the paper concise and tight only 2 transmitter categories have been analyzed in detail with relation to the demographics data available.
Methodology
The process of identifying potential high transmission sites begins by analyzing the complete state. There are many data requirements to enable the functioning of the GIS system. Kerala base administrative layers for districts and taluks are digitized. High transmission sites already identified have been collected from the AIDS control society. Demographic data has been made available by census department of India. All other major towns, cities and tourist places have been digitized form survey of India sheets.
Once all the layers are made available in digitized form the data is attached to the map. In this case the data resides in Microsoft Excel format and the same is linked to the GIS system by ID matching process.
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