Mobile Application for Dengue Fever Monitoring and Tracking via GPS: Case Study for Fiji

The 2013 outbreak of Dengue in Fiji resulted in an alarming number of deaths and has been is a matter of serious concern. Dengue fever is a disease caused by the four types of the Dengue virus serotypes and transmitted mostly from mosquito bites. In Fiji, dengue diagnosis is only done in hospitals which are slow and time consuming. It is also important to monitor the spread of Dengue. Fiji needs an convenient method of monitoring the spread of Dengue. With increase in affordable smartphones and better Internet coverage, there is scope for a mobile application for Dengue fever monitoring and tracking. This paper proposes a mobile application for Dengue monitoring based on global positioning system (GPS) enabled mobile phone technology. It also provides an information network that shows the spread of dengue which will allow health authorities to quickly identify dengue infected areas in Fiji. A mobile application prototype is developed and tested and the scope for further testing and implementation is also given.