Microscopes and pipettes are not the only tool to investigate diseases. Now, the European Space Agency will use satellites to fight Ebola.
Researchers say the disease has its origin in the African jungle, but so far they have not been able to identify which animal is the deposit of the virus. For this purpose, in addition to the usual tools, they want to use satellite and geographical data.
On the one hand, we will detail the places of the jungle where the dead animals that have developed antibodies against the Ebola virus have been found and, on the other, the place where the human beings who have developed them live. Satellite weather data will analyze the common ecological conditions in these areas.
In fact, the rainfall rate, humidity and temperature of the Earth's crust have much to do with the life cycle of different living beings in the jungle, such as mosquitoes. In these cases, researchers expect satellite data to contribute to epidemiology. The European Space Agency has launched the project called Epidemio.