Application of a geographic information system to the tracking anti control of an outbreak of shigellosis

A personal computer-based commercial geographic information system (GIS) wa s applied to an outbreak of Shigella sonnei infection at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. We used a database consisting of demographic, temporal, and home- address information for all recognized cases of S. sonnei that occurred amo ng health care beneficiaries from 23 May 1997 through 14 August 1997, We im ported this database into the GIS, which contained a digitized basemap of t he local community. Through simultaneous examination of temporal and spatia l distribution of the 59 identified cases of S. sonnei, a focus of infectio n in a single housing area was identified. Targeted education among residen ts of the neighborhood in which there was intense transmission was associat ed with prompt extinction of the epidemic. A GIS offers an efficient and pr actical way to directly visualize the dynamics of transmission of infectiou s diseases in the setting of a community outbreak.