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Online army helps map Guinea's Ebola outbreak

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  • Online army helps map Guinea's Ebola outbreak

    Source: http://www.newscientist.com/article/...l#.U0g7I8dpehd


    Online army helps map Guinea's Ebola outbreak

    11 April 2014 by Hal Hodson

    Health workers responding to an Ebola outbreak in Guinea had no maps to go on, so they turned to the internet for help

    WHEN doctors working for M?decins Sans Fronti?res (MSF) arrived in the West African nation of Guinea last month to combat an outbreak of the deadly Ebola haemorrhagic fever, they found themselves working in an information vacuum.

    Accurate maps are crucial to pinpointing the source of the Ebola virus and preventing it from spreading. But the only maps in Guinea were topographic charts ? useless for understanding population distribution. Desperate for information, they enlisted an online army to help.

    MSF asked a digital mapping organisation called Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) to build them a map of Gu?ck?dou, a city of around 250,000 people in southern Guinea, where the outbreak is concentrated...
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