Ebola outbreak help extends from space

Telemedicine and innovative devices could help reduce unnecessary exposures to virus

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CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORP.                                                                                 July 19, 2015

Space technology such as satellite images and telemedicine could play a bigger role in helping to control the Ebola outbreak that's killed more than 11,250 people, a Canadian doctor says.

Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield holds the Microflow experiment to test how the instrument counts blood cells in orbit. Such space spinoffs have the potential to be applied to outbreaks of infectious diseases on Earth. (NASA)

This week's issue of the medical journal Lancet Infectious Disease includes a commentary titled "Help from Above — outer space and the fight against Ebola."

Lead author Dr. Farhan Asrar, an assistant professor in family and community medicine at the University of Toronto, outlines how space assets, such as satellites coupled with portable, self-scanning medical devices and telemedicine, have been used to fight Ebola and other potential applications.

There will always be a need to treat infected patients directly, but Asrar hopes telemedicine and innovative devices could help reduce unnecessary exposures to the virus and supplement monitoring of outbreaks.

For example on Earth, larger cytometers are used in health care to look at infectious cells, check for toxicity in blood diseases and to identify blood cancers. On the International Space Station, astronauts test on the Canadian Space Agency's miniaturized, low cost cytometer....

Read complete story.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/ebola-outbreak-help-extends-from-space-1.3154916

See Lancet article:

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099%2815%2900153-X/abstract