GEOINT, biological intelligence: Next frontier in biosafety

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020, tracking the spread of the virus and identifying affected populations quickly became a global priority. Geospatial technologies, particularly Geographic Information Systems (GIS), emerged as an intuitive and effective solution.

- SHARANPREET KAUR

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020, tracking the spread of the virus and identifying affected populations quickly became a global priority. Geospatial technologies, particularly Geographic Information Systems (GIS), emerged as an intuitive and effective solution. In the United States, the Johns Hopkins Medical Centre developed a visual dashboard that became a widely used reference for policymakers, researchers, and the public to monitor the progress and movement of the virus. This innovation drew from the work of Ensheng Dong, a researcher who designed a GIS tracker just a month after learning about the outbreak, primarily to ensure the safety of his family in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, China.

Dong's tracker later became the blueprint for many other tracking systems around the world. This case demonstrated the power of geospatial intelligence (GEOINT), a discipline combining GIS, remote sensing, and satellite reconnaissance, in monitoring infectious disease transmission, bolstering readiness for biological emergencies, and detecting latent biosecurity threats.

In India, outbreaks of viruses such as Nipah or Human Metapneumovirus (HMPV) underscore the urgent need for advanced disease mapping and surveillance. Current approaches largely rely on house-to-house checks and testing of animal-based samples, such as bat droppings in the case of Nipah. These methods, while useful, are limited in scope and speed.

GEOINT offers a valuable complement to these efforts through real-time tracking of disease spread. Governments and health agencies can harness satellite data to monitor animal migration, detect heat signatures, and analyse patterns in environmental conditions that influence disease outbreaks. GIS platforms can then map transmission paths, identify high-risk zones, and overlay data on ecological factors to predict potential hotspots.