Thursday, May 31, 2012

Diseases and Refugee camps

Dadaab refugee camp
One of the projects we are working on at GMU is exploring the the dynamics of refugee camps and the spread of diseases within such camps. 

Our initial focus is on the the Dadaab refugee camps which are located in Kenya, approximately 100 kilometers from the Somali border. The camps themselves are homes to roughly 500,000 people, with nearly 99% of the population coming from Somalia. Within the camps the mortality rate is ~ 0.44/10,000 per day with  diseases such as cholera and measles being among the causes of death.

Below are some movies of the prototype models that are currently being developed in Mason ABM toolkit and utilizing its GeoMason extension. The first movie shows a overview of the model dashboard, while the second show the spread of cholera within the area.





While the second movies (below) shows our first attempt at modeling one type of disease, that of cholera. In the simulation we pollute one bore hole with cholera and simulated how it might spread through the camp under specific conditions.




While this is still work in progress, we thought it worth sharing to see what feedback we may get. More details about the models will come soon.

Click here to see previous blog posts on diseases


No comments: