**3. Surveillance of COVID-19**

#### **3.1 Geographical information system (GIS) based study**

GIS is an information system for capturing, gathering, analyzing and managing data into visual form. GIS has brought a new trend of revolution in the field of health and therefore it can be encouraged to be used as a support tool for the tracking of COVID -19 cases during this global pandemic [45]. The world health organization even uses the GIS technology to map and update number of COVID - 19 cases and also lists the deaths occurring all over the world on their dashboard regularly. The spatiotemporal algorithms present in GIS are helpful in identifying the COVID -19 outbreak faster. The algorithms therein are useful in assessing and recording the appropriate number of people infected with the virus. GIS assisted with remote sensing provides the real time aerial and satellite photographs which leads to the evaluation of the disease growth and fluctuations all over the world or in a particular area [46]. The above information captured through GIS is useful in analyzing and locating the area which is worst affected and the areas under risk zone where the virus is likely to spread rapidly in future. Through GIS technique we can became aware of the spread of COVID 19 in advance and hence can take strict decisive actions in areas facing serious COVID circumstances [47]. The ways in which GIS tools can be helpful are summarized in **Figure 3**.

The other ways in which GIS technology can be used for limiting the disease spread includes contact tracing, selection of sites for emergency treatment units and digital mapping that shows location and time-sensitive functions directly related to a spread of virus and hence alert the officials to cancel the particular public event, minimizing the number of persons affected. Web maps are also useful in solving the problem of acute supply of medical appliances signaling the distributors [48]. Researches have used GIS and modeling techniques to understand overlap of environmental parameters such as air pollution, microclimate, and impact on SDGs with COVID-19 prevalence [49]. The parametric and probabilistic modeling along with statistical tools available with GIS have also been used to understand disease prevalence and management in countries [50]. Currently many mobile/android applications are based on GIS technology such as Aarogyasetu (India), COVID-19 symptom trackers, etc. launched by many countries, which are used for contact

*Evolution of Diagnostic Methods and Prevalence Detection of COVID-19: A Review DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99241*

**Figure 3.** *Role of GIS in disease prevalence mapping, analysis and management.*

tracing [51]. These applications are cost efficient, present accurate data and thus are more reliable.
