Satellites and the New War on Infection: Tracking Ebola in West Africa

Abstract

Satellite technologies are increasingly being deployed to manage infectious disease outbreaks. Although there is a substantive literature concerned with the geopolitics of space and the ethical issues raised by the use of remote sensing in warfare and counterinsurgency, little study has been made of the critical role played by satellites in public health crises. In this paper, we focus on the 2014–2015 Ebola virus disease (EVD) epidemic in West Africa, which saw the widespread use of public and commercial satellite-derived data, to investigate how overhead orbital and close-up viewpoints enabled by satellites are shaping attitudes to disease and determining responses to infectious threats. We argue that high-resolution satellite imagery is acting as a spur to a new spatio-temporal targeting of disease that parallels the ever more vertical dimension of contemporary warfare. At the same time, this new visualization of disease is promoting a broader ecological perspective on pathogen emergence. How can these divergent perspectives be reconciled? In addressing this question, we analyze the different uses to which satellite imagery has been put in tracking and mapping Ebola ‘hotspots’ across Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. We also consider the institutional contexts that have enabled the acquisition of this imagery. Given the rapid integration of space technologies in epidemiology and health logistics, there is now a need to examine how and with what consequences remote-sensing and communication technologies may be reconfiguring the practices and scope of global health.