South-East Asia Regional Conference on Epidemiology

<strong>South</strong>-<strong>East</strong> <strong>Asia</strong> <strong>Regional</strong> <strong>Conference</strong> on Epidemiology | 93
every single case very easily by clicking at any particular household to retrieve patient information.
The local health- care provider can see how many times the patient’s blood has been taken, what was
the blood drawn date and when it was taken the last time. This is real-time information. With the
information registered in the system, the responsible staff can identify what type of patients they are
- Thai or migrants. After providing the treatment, the staff can use the follow-up module to follow the
patients for the next 42 days for P. falciparum malaria and 90 days for P. vivax malaria.
There are two groups, the Thai and the migrants, who come from across the border. The migrants
need to be traced because a lot of drug-resistant cases occur among them. That is why each case is
important not only in the field but also in hospital. All the patients in hospitals are also being captured
and recorded. GIS has information at the household level and also from hospitals. For the purpose of
patient identification, the volunteer’s picture may be taken with permission; the mobile itself can also
record the GPS locations of new huts in a new area.
User inputs and utilization
Fig. 4: Flag* represents household location captured from mobile phone.
*Each flag can be selected for examining any visit made for follow-up
The local malaria staff who have used the system are satisfied with this system because they do not
have to re-analyse the information. Most of them reported that this online system is quite satisfactory
as it can summarize the information as soon as it is entered. They can see what happened in their area
as well as in the adjacent district or province. The vector-borne disease unit in this particular area
said that they can monitor the situation in their responsible areas and can take decisions based on the
information in the system. The summary statistics and GIS presentations make it easier for them to
plan their actions.