Scientists and researchers studying the global spread of the virus are using advanced geographic information systems to gain insight into the way a pandemic develops and to see if there is a way to reduce the effects. Media such as newspapers and television are also using maps with diagrams to illustrate their coverage of the pandemic Mexican flu.

The combined use of maps and data to solve medical problems is not new. It was Dr John Snow (1), a medical physician and pioneer in the fields of epidemiology and anaesthetics, who, back in 1853/1854, plotted the addresses of patients who suffered from cholera on a map, thus revealing the spatial correlation between deaths from cholera and distance to a certain pump in Broad Street (today called Broadwick Street). Mathias Lemmen, senior editor of GIM International, wrote a very interesting article on this subject called ‘Medical Mapping' in September 2007. It can be (re)read on this website (2).

Today, there is a plaque on Broadwick Street commemorating Dr Snow and his 1854 study. It shows a water pump with its handle removed - a monument for Dr Snow and a monument for the first GIS.

The photograph on this page shows arriving passengers passing by a thermal camera at Incheon International Airport, South Korea, on April 28 as authorities stepped up quarantine measures to check the influx of swine flu cases. The suspected number of deaths at that moment rose to 149 in Mexico, the epicentre of the outbreak with nearly 2,000 people believed to be infected. The inlay shows the reproduction of Dr Snow's map.

E-mail:  henk.key@geomares.nl