ESA Supports Health Early Warning System

The European Space Agency is supporting a “Health Early Warning System, designed to allow governments to coordinate actions during emergencies.

By identifying and mapping occurrences such as tsunamis, earthquakes and hurricanes — as well as medical emergencies — agencies can relieve suffering more quickly and contain a situation more efficiently, the ESA said.

The Health Early Warning System, or HEWS, establishes a satellite communication network to survey and monitor risk indicators. Data is collected, analyzed and then distributed to emergency teams in the field.

The ESA said what will make HEWS critical to disaster relief agencies is that it is satellite based. Disasters may disrupt or even destroy local infrastructure, but satellites are immune to such problems.

The system will be tested in two exercises. An African test will involve a simulated infectious disease incident, while the European scenario will simulate a terrorist attack.

HEWS is the work of a consortium of the National Institute of Health and Tekever S.A., both in Portugal, and Ridgeback S.A.S in Italy.

The project is co-financed by the ESA.