Africa continues to be blighted by epidemics. ESA's Epidemio Project has brought a new weapon in the battle against such diseases: Satellite observation which gives a detailed picture of their spread and connected conditions.
See also http://www.epidemio.info
Today's Programme features how this actually works, and the first results of the project, including soundbites by ESA's Project Leader, Simon Pinnock.

Mapping Epidemics by Sattellite

10:00:40 How can satellites help track and control epidemics? By doing what satellites do best - tracking changes in the environment such as rainfall: vegetation cover, urban environments, the distribution of water, wind-blown dust, and temperature and more. These are all factors that impact on the appearance and spread of epidemics. The European Space Agencyís project Epidemio brings together the Space industry, researchers and health workers in the field to combine information in an attempt to combat the spread of Epidemics. Images of Envisat + satellite images of Earth+scientists at ESRIN and researchers in Paris.
10:01:12 ITW Simon Pinnock ñ ESA Earth Observation application engineer « The reason for doing Epidemio is that they are some serious human diseases such as malaria, meningitis and so on, that are clearly linked with environment factors. With satellite remote sensing we can gather informations on these environmental factors to help the research