Assisting in epidemics
Sanyal mentions how mobile operators assisted during the widespread outbreak of Ebola in Liberia. More than 11,000 people died in this epidemic. When an epidemic occurs on such a massive scale, the authorities need information on the number of people affected in a region, as well as the outbreak pattern of the epidemic in neighboring regions. This helps them to react quickly and contain the epidemic.
In the outbreak in Liberia, the aggregated CDR data generated timely information on mobility patterns within the country, as well into neighboring countries, such as the Republic of Guinea and Sierra Leone. In the project, which ran for two months, Liberia’s main operators, Lonestar, Cellcom, and Novafone collected CDR data to reconstruct mobility patterns following the epidemic.
The project involved Liberia’s entire base of mobile subscribers. Phone numbers were replaced with a hash algorithm that generated random numbers to protect a subscriber’s privacy. CDR analysis of subscriber data provided details of migration from a specific town. It showed the volume of people entering a hazard zone, and their movements thereafter. The analysis also provided details of inbound and outbound migration with the neighboring countries.
