Understanding the spatial patterns of infectious diseases can provide insight as to their causes and controls. Geographic information systems (GIS) and related technologies like remote sensing are increasingly used to analyze geographical distribution of diseases as well as relationships between pathogenic factors (causative agents, patients, vectors and hosts) and their geographic environments. Basic and analytical applications of GIS in epidemiology can help in visualizing and analyzing geographic distribution of diseases through time, thus revealing spatio-temporal trends, patterns, and relationships that would be more difficult or obscure to discover in tabular or other formats. GIS can provide a means to meet the demands of outbreak investigation and response, where understanding the spatial spread and dynamics of an outbreak is central to the design of prevention and control strategies.

Keywords: Geographic information system, Epidemiology, Infectious disease, Prevention, Outbreak, Zoonosis