EpiCollect in Ebola Surveillance

FAO is supporting the Government of Liberia through the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MoH) to maintain an active surveillance system for tracking and monitoring trends and outcomes of the prevalence of the Ebola Virus Disease in the country.

FAO has provided a two-day training session and several high-tech IT equipment including 18 tablet PCs and one computer with accessories. They will be used in the EpiCollect data collection and storage technology to enable staff of the MoH to collect, store and monitor data emanating from Ebola cases in the counties. The effort is essential in monitoring, reclassifying cases, alerting new cases and contacts and carrying out post-epidemic evaluation.

FAO Emergencies Site

Can mobile phones help fight against undernutrition?

Article in the Guardian discussing how mobile phone technology is being used in the fight against undernutrition. 

Indonesia has one of the highest numbers of undernourished children in the world.Photograph: Ahmad Zamroni/AFP/Getty Images

A new study carried out by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), World Vision Indonesia and World Vision Canada calls for the need to properly assess the impact of using mobile phone technology to address undernutrition. 

Using mobile phones in malaria control programmes

The Malaria Consortium is doing some exciting work in the use of mobiles to aid the control of malaria. This photo story from the Guardian captures some of the innovative ways that field workers have been able to adapt the functions of a basic mobile to do everything from providing lighting to accessing disease information.

Mission Rabies now using EpiCollect in India

Mission Rabies have successfully used EpiCollect to capture over 60,000 data records for vaccinated dogs in India.

Africa’s mobile phone e-learning transformation

Fascinating article from this week's Times Higher Education magazine from which I have linked to the following info graphic -

Fact : there are now more mobile phones in Africa than in the USA!

Release of EpiCollect +

Imperial College have just released EpiCollect + which offers a range of advanced features for data surveillance using mobile phones. We have been testing out the new application in Kenya over the last week and are impressed by the new form building interface and additional features such as Jumps and Branches.

The server application has also been significant advanced and now offers a simple install apk for institutional servers and a more efficient MySql database support. As a result performance which had been a problem with large data sets with the original application is now much improved.

Some of the key features of EpiCollect + include:

Features:
	Drag and Drop form Builder
	Define multiple linked form(s)
	Any number of text questions
	Any number of media fields:
	View / chart with Maps
	Download all data
	Greater Form Validation
	Define form logic (jump Q's)
	Upload ecml form definitions

Read more at http://www.epicollect.net/

Poster presentation on Veterinary Surveillance using EpiCollect + at the GeoVet Conference, London 22nd August 2013

This joint poster provided an opportunity to present the use of mobile technologies for livestock disease surveillance based on the work we have carried out in East Africa.  It was also a chance to profile the brand new release of EpiCollect + developed by David Aanensen and his team at Imperial College, London.

Click on the poster to view a larger version