The BackGround

The key to success in handling disease epidemics is early detection. If a disease can be detected very early in the phase of epidemic development, the possibility exists that it can be arrested and eliminated before it actually inflicts damage. Early detection presupposes that there is a surveillance system in place that will bring infection to light when it is first seen.

Thus the theory is straightforward and sounds simple; outbreaks of transmittable animal disease can be minimized with early warning and early reaction. In practice these require a degree of emergency preparedness that might, more usually, be associated with flood, drought or some other natural disaster.

Effective prevention and progressive control of transboundary diseases needs proper information based on reliable data. Collection and processing data is the key issue, especially for the countries like KSA, endangered by widespread of diseases.

The Solution 

The Early Warning System (EWS) is a rule based, web enabled GIS solution developed to assist Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) authorities in disseminating the disease outbreaks to various MoA officials and to the citizens, spread across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The main aim of the application is to keep a track of diseases spread across the Kingdom to help the ministry to proactively prevent and in worst cases be prepared for any outbreaks.

Devlopment Programme

• ArcGIS Server 9.1
• Microsoft .Net Framework
• Oracle 9i
• Geodatabase