18TH-CENTURY “MEDICAL GEOGRAPHERS” BECOME 21ST-CENTURY “DISEASE MAPPERS”
Could a modern city die of plague? Could a virus ravage an entire ecosystem of human beings?
The prospect is horrifying. A great modern city is a hive, an enormous petri dish, teeming with life of all kinds— and every life-form is competing for dominance, fighting to feed upon every other life form there. Viruses outnumber all else. Streets littered with dead and dying people of all ages is not a surreal nightmare, but the fate of unprepared populations.
The question should be, not COULD it happen, but WHEN will it happen?
If a disease vector could be predicted, that forecast might give precious time for a vaccine to be developed and inoculations distributed. And for extreme preventive measures to be taken in all other ways, to defend the live of millions of inhabitants at risk.
Vectors of disease have ever plagued mankind, from smallpox to cholera to yellow fever to malaria. The infernal list of viral disease goes on and on. Viruses are perhaps mankind’s number one competitor to dominant life on earth. They are cunning, seemingly intelligent, always mutating to evade our defenses and to attack in mass.
When cholera and yellow fever spread during the 18th century, “medical geographers” drew maps to show infected areas. But these pioneers really had no way of knowing where an epidemic would strike next.
Now, a new category of science has opened— the Disease Mapper.
What on earth is a Disease Mapper? And why do they earn upwards of $150K/year?
They become the scientist who can show us where the disease may strike next. Their educational requirements are varied— a Ph.D. or at least a Master’s in a tech field, plus expertise in a particular disease.
This whole new class of researchers is using the latest satellite imagery, cheap computing, big databases, (and free tools like Google Earth). They work to reveal how epidemics spread around the globe.
Who are these Mappers? How do they become mappers?
One pioneer of plague prediction is Dr Simon Hays, an Oxford University researcher. Dr Hays developed a global map (of malaria— the planet’s top killer of human beings). Hays sought to track current outbreaks of the dread disease, and far more— to help predict future ones.
Data from NASA satellites can help plot a picture of rainfall, temperature, vegetation, and other variables in regions where malaria has struck. Hays correlates it with data like infection rates and hospital reports— to create a map of the disease and its projected spread through the vectors of humanity.
The demand for disease mapping is urgent and is growing. Increasing public awareness of environmental hazards is at an all-time high. Public health authorities are being pressured to investigate and to even predict geographical clustering of diseases. That means maps of disease tendencies, and coming vectors.
Everyone wants to know: “Where will disease strike next?”
Do you crave flexible hours, not to mention travel to exotic locales? Do you want to help Mankind avoid the horrors of plague? Disease mapping may be your destiny.
Who’s hiring? Universities, governments, the United Nations, some consultancies.
The intelligentsia of all societies know that plagues are coming, and will always come.
But where will it strike? That’s the answer that only a Disease Mapper can even hope to answer. And the answer can save thousands, even million, of human lives.
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