An international effort is underway to stop the spread of the deadly Ebola virus with logistics and training, and health care companies are scrambling to produce promising treatments and vaccines, but a number of high tech solutions also have emerged as potential keys to addressing the outbreak.
In about two weeks, an elite group of robotics researchers from academia and the private sector will meet at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and two other universities around the country for a U.S. government-sanctioned event to try to develop ways robots can be used to help combat the disease that has killed nearly 5,000 people.
"I do believe that technology interventions at the right place, at the right time, robotics technologies or other technologies can be impactful," said Taskin Padir, a robotics professor at WPI.
One of the most useful jobs for robots could be decontamination, said Velin Dimitrov, a doctoral candidate at WPI. He said a robot called Aero could easily be modified to disinfect areas that have been contaminated with the Ebola virus.
Robots also could be used to bury those who have died from Ebola, as well as removing personal protective gear worn by health workers.
"If we can minimize the contact, we can minimize the risk," Padir said.
In the unlikely event that there is an outbreak in Massachusetts, state officials say they are well prepared thanks to an existing tool called MAVEN. Officially called the Massachusetts Virtual Epidemiologic Network, MAVEN is an early detection tool that allows state epidemiologists to track and get real-time alerts for suspected and confirmed cases.
"MAVEN has been set up to respond automatically to different pieces of information," said Gillian Haney, director of surveillance and informatics at the state Department of Public Health's bureau of infectious disease. "What it allows us to do is to have real time information sharing on reportable disease events."
One of these pieces of information is a confirmed test, notification of which is automatically pushed to state health officials thanks to the electronic testing procedures put in place by many health-care facilities.
Alerts for some diseases — including Ebola — are automatically sent to the state when there is a suspected case. Local health departments and other necessary personnel are then notified.
Haney said Massachusetts is better positioned than many other states to deal with an epidemic of any kind, in part because more than 90 percent of the state's lab tests are part of the state health information exchange, which feeds into MAVEN.
Technology giants also are getting involved in the Ebola fight. Microsoft last week said that it would give academics researching Ebola access to its Azure cloud computing platform to boost their storage and computing power.
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