2015 UIA-PHG Student Competition

Background
Globalization and fast transportation networks have brought people living closer to each other but also created unpredictable public health threats from time to time. An unknown disease or virus that was originally contained in isolated areas can affect any corner in the world within just a few days. In the past several months, the world has witnessed the exponential spread of the Ebola outbreak. The World Health Organization reported that the number of Ebola cases were 9,936 with 4,877 deaths as of October 22, 2014. The same situation happened 11 years ago when SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) infected 8,273 individuals in 37 countries with 775 deaths. To fight against Ebola, SARS and other communicable disease epidemics, health organizations should act quickly to identify, diagnose, isolate and treat patients. However, this may be impossible in many regions, especially in developing countries or remote areas, due to the lack of quality healthcare resource. Therefore, a flexible, effective and affordable measure is needed to provide swift response to communicable disease epidemics.