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Keeping track of Ebola

Reporter Colin Baker talks through the difficulties of collecting data on Ebola.

One of the first steps in the fight against Ebola is to increase communication throughout the region. The Ebola phone does just that.

The phone, which looks much like your typical office device, has been distributed across threatened regions in an effort to get first line responders connected to epidemiologists and isolation centers.

The point of this communication is to share information and data, but one of the problems that comes up when storing data in clinics treating Ebola patients is that everything that goes into the clinic is destroyed, which makes keeping a diary or a hard drive to share with others is impossible.

For this reason, among many others, the CDC has launched an online platform called Epi Info which allows clinics to log all the information they’re getting about Ebola in the field to this central software. Clinics treating Ebola patients have iPad’s where the information is logged and shared with others to continue fighting this vicious disease.

Colin Baker is a journalist based in Bamako, Mali’s capital city. He joined us to talk about the other high tech solutions being used to share important medical data.

Click the media player above to hear Colin Baker in conversation with Marketplace Tech host Ben Johnson.

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