Open source tool helps fight measles
The Washington Post on Friday reported that global measles fatalities had been reduced by two-thirds following stepped-up vaccination campaigns since 2000.
software.
Coverage of these measles vaccination campaigns has been carried out using pocket computers running an open-source program, EpiSurveyor, developed by a Washington-based nonprofit, DataDyne.
DataDyne punts EpiSurveyor as a free, open source tool that can be used to make hand-held data entry forms, collect data on a mobile device and then transfer the data back to a desktop or laptop for analysis.
The initiative is the first mass health project in the developing world to use hand-held computers in coverage surveys conducted to measure the success of interventions, according to the Washington Post. This work was previously done with pen and paper and took far longer to tabulate data.
The newspaper reported that the importance of coverage surveys was shown in October 2005, when surveyors in the tsunami-struck Aceh province of Indonesia discovered immediately after a vaccination campaign that as many as 70 percent of children had been missed in some districts. Vaccinators, who had not yet dispersed, were sent back to vaccinate in those areas.
Africa
saw the biggest drop in measles deaths through the course of the initiative, achieving a reduction of 91 percent. The initiative hopes to cut annual worldwide measles deaths by 90 percent by 2010.
In 2000, global measles mortality was 757 000. In 2006, it was down to 242 000, said the Washington Post, adding that these were down considerably from levels in 1990 of about 1.06 million measles deaths.
"This is a major achievement in global health," Kathy Bushkin Calvin, an official of the United Nations Foundation, told the Washington Post.
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