EBOLA EXPERT SYSTEM PROJECT

 
CHAPTER ONE

1.0       GENERAL OVERVIEW

1.1       INTRODUCTION

The Ebola virus takes its name from the Ebola River in northern Congo, where it first emerged in 1976.  In this outbreak, 318 people were infected and 280 died (Le Guenno and Galabru, 1997). 
On average the disease has an 80% fatality rate. Recent studies have identified four strains of the virus, suggested by differences in mortality and clinical expression. The contamination risk is related to contact with the body fluids of an infected person.  This is most likely during the nursing of patients and the preparation of corpses for burial. Also, as the disease kills so rapidly the risk of an epidemic in developed countries is believed to be low. Outbreaks tend to spread from one isolated case and so individual behaviour and local customs play an important role in the progress of each outbreak of Ebola or a similar epidemic Initial cases leading to secondary transmission to the person taking care of the infected person are called familial outbreaks.  The tendency so far has been for the spread to amplify when infected people enter local hospital care without proper protective equipment or hygiene rules and then explodes as the virus spreads to general hospitals, as was the case in the Kitwit (Zaire) outbreak in 1995. These hospitals tend to be ideal breeding grounds for disease due to the poor training of staff, inadequate staff levels, poor standards of hygiene, lack of analytical laboratory equipment and only basic medicine (Shears, 2000). 

1.2       STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

Ebola virus disease (EVD), formally known as Ebola haemorrhagic fever, is a sever, often fatal illness in humans. Ebola is introduced into the human population through close contact with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected animals. In Africa, infection has been documented through the handling of infected chimpanzees, gorillas, fruit bats, monkeys, forest antelope and porcupines found ill or dead or in the rainforest. Ebola then spreads in the community through human-to-human transmission, with infection resulting from direct contact (through broken skin or mucous membranes) with the blood, secretions, organs or other bodily fluids of infected people, and indirect contact with environments contaminated with such fluids. The outbreak has a case fatality rate of up to 90% with no licensed specific treatment or vaccine available for use in people or animals. Ebola is both rare and very deadly. Since the first 2 simultaneous outbreaks, in Nzara, Sudan, and in Yambuku, Democratic Republic of Congo in 1976, Ebola viruses have infected roughly 2,400 people and killed about one-third of them.

1.3.0   AIM AND OBJECTIVES

The aim of the project is to reduce morbidity and mortality due to Ebola through prompt identification, notification and effective management of cases, as well as effective social mobilization and coordination of response activities. The project requires activities to be implemented at community, district and national levels to break the chains of transmission.

1.3.1   OBJECTIVES

Ø    Enhance public awareness about Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) at the community level, including risk factors for transmission, effective control measures and how to prevent additional cases.

Ø    Strengthen coordination and communication mechanisms among key actors responding to the outbreak of Ebola (WHO, CDC, government line ministries, international NGOs and civil society organizations) and among community stakeholders.

Ø    Reinforce government line ministries’ capacity to deliver appropriate psychosocial services and material support to EVD‐ affected children and families, including their acceptance and reintegration into their communities.

Ø    Strengthen community resilience and coping mechanisms through capacity building of community health personnel and other first responders to improve early detection, self‐reporting, rapid and safe referral of suspected cases, quarantine and contact tracing.

Ø    Create a safe and supportive working environment for Child Fund staff, local partners and community health workers attached to government line ministries to work jointly in the three EVD affected countries.

Ø    To help better guide the planning clinical trials on vaccine and potential treatment.      

1.4       SCOPE AND LIMITATION

The coverage of this study includes the study and Expert system on the treatment of EBOLA virus that will give prompt and accurate medical report about the positive patient in the medial or health center. Having understood the present system of the Expert System, this may have some limitations and this is due to: Lack of proper analysis, study and design due to un-ability to have enough time to carry out a detailed study of all the operations in the Nigeria Teaching Hospital. the proposed software we be handle using Visual Basic (VB), software and MS Access we be used to manage the database, on window base.  

1.5       SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The significance of this study is to build an atmosphere to stop the spread of EBOLA virus in city, town and local villages. that it will change the present EBOLA patients record are kept at medical health treatment are taking care of, and attendance of victim are automated reliable informed that will in turn improve the managements planning and decision making activities such as adding, updates frequently so as to give adequate and current situation. It is also use to provide flexibility in storage and retrieval of information; it also helps to provide security Nigeria citizen.

1.6   DEFINITION OF TERMS

·              EBOLA: A notoriously deadly virus that causes fearsome symptoms, the most prominent being high fever and massive internal bleeding.

·              Virus: is an infective agent that typically consists of a nucleic acid molecule in a protein coat, is too small to be seen by light microscopy, and is able to multiply only the living cells of a host.

·              Resources: this comprise of people, materials, machines, information, knowledge time. Which are required to implement services delivery with the aims of profit generation?

·              Computer: this is an electronic device that accepts input data through the input media such as keyboards, mouse, tapes or disc processes. This data in its central processing unit and produce useful information.

·              Program: A set of instruction arranged or directing a digital computer to perform a desired operation.

·              Programming: the procedure involves in instruction that the computer will allow to perform a specific task

·              Registration: the process of enrolling at a college or university, choosing courses, and paying fees at the beginning of an academic term.

·              Data: are collection of fact sum up to produce and information of a particular individual

·              Database: is a collection of information that is organized so that it can easily be accessed, managed and updated.

·              Expert System: an expert system is a piece of software which uses database of expert knowledge to offer advice or make decision in such area as medical diagnosis.

CHAPTER TWO

2.0       LITERATURE REVIEW AND SYSTEM ANALYSIS

2.1       LITERATURE REVIEW

The first documented outbreak of Ebola virus (EBOV) began on September 5th, 1976, at the Yambuku Mission Hospital near Bumba in northern Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC). A 44-year-old patient had presented himself to the hospital 10 days earlier with a febrile illness and was given an injection of chloroquine for presumptive malaria, which alleviated his fever. However, febrile symptoms returned on September 1st; 3 days after being admitted to the hospital, the patient died. By October 24th of that year, 280 fatal human cases of an unknown viral hemorrhagic fever had been documented around Yambuku, and later Kinsasha, along with only 38 serologically-confirmed survivors. In the weeks after this index case was reported, an international team of doctors deployed to the effected region with the following goals: to surveil and contain the disease, to conduct an epidemiological analysis of its spread, and to begin investigating the microbial agent behind this novel syndrome. They found that patients often presented with general symptoms such as fever, headache and sore throat, but showed more critical signs as the disease progressed such as diarrhea, vomiting and bleeding. Initially, the disease was thought to be one of the other viral hemorrhagic fevers known at the time, such as Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever or Marburg disease. Indeed, initial characterization by electron microscopy revealed particles similar in morphology to Marburg virus (MARV). However, the virus isolated from the Yambuku outbreak was found to be serologically distinct from MARV and was given the name, Ebola virus, after the nearby Ebola River. It is interesting to note that almost concomitantly to this outbreak of what would later be identified as the Zaire subtype of EBOV, an outbreak of a genetically distinct subtype had begun just months earlier in Sudan. (The Sudan outbreak would be investigated slightly after the Zaire outbreak, as a World Heath Organization team was only dispatched to Sudan in late October of 1976). The Sudan outbreak occurred primarily in the villages of Nzara and Maridi, only a few hundred kilometers northeast of the Bumba region in Zaire (Figure 1-1). The approximately 4 day journey between Nzara, Sudan and Bumba, Zaire was occasionally made by residents of that region, and so at the time it was considered a possibility that an infected individual had traveled from Nzara to the Yambuku hospital to initiate that outbreak. Subsequent genetic analysis of the viruses from these first two EBOV outbreaks confirmed their distinct phylogeny, thereby disproving this theory; nevertheless, the temporal and geographic coincidences remain.

Image show the Ebola discovering country of Ebola originated

2.2       FEASIBLITY STUDY

This use the preliminary investigation was carried out on the present manual system use for Diagnosing EBOLA virus. This investigation was conducted so as to determine the potentials of the proposed system by studying the existing system and its functionality. The information generated from the study of the manual system was used in the development of the proposed Expert system.

·              OPERATIONAL FEASIBILITY:- the Expert system on the treatment of EBOLA virus is very friendly, easy to understand and operate by the staffs through their mobiles phones if the program is converted to mobile format and laptops with internet connection, therefore the Expert system on the treatment of EBOLA virus is operational.

·              TECHNICAL FEASIBILITY:- Statistically, research is made to understand that all civil servant/Government workers are forced to be computer oriented and virtually staffs in hospital have a personal computer PCS (Laptop/Desktop or Mobile Phones). And the program can be operated via the listed electronic computer component. The Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Bida Nigeria, has staffs which are computer literate and patients’ information can be view/registered and diagnose.

·              ECONOMIC FEASIBILITY:- The cost of conducting a full software investigations was borne by the group/team (who conducted the study) while the required software to run this program is nothing other than what the hospital already has. Economic feasibility also implies the cost benefit on the project, based on our analysis; this project is profitable because the cost of development is far below the expected benefit that will be gained and safety by both patients’ and staffs after developing the project. Hence, this project has no economic feasibility problem.

2.3       SYSTEM ANALYSIS

System analysis is used to describe the process of collecting and analysing fact irrespective of the existing operation procedure and system in order to obtain a full gratitude of the prevailing situation. System analysis or design is an important stage of this project because it is at this stage that all the requirements of the project were acquired for the new system. The studies gave adequate attention to details when designing the system specification and propose design.

2.4       FACT FINDING

The design is taking from the study of Expert system on the treatment of EBOLA virus; the existing problems were narrow down from the use of research methodology using the interview, experience and observation method.

·              INTERVIEW: During the course of data collection, staffs and patients’ were interviewed in Federal Medical Centre, Bida and some General Hospital Bida-Minna Road etc; concerning the Expert system. Some patients’ complained that the method of face to face is dangerous and information collected is not effectual enough because of the risk involved; taking case of record or information may be requested for and emergency purposes and a time limit is given to such emergency patients’ such patients’ may not meet up the target. Also some staffs who happen to be some patients doctor in charge are afraid of been patients referees because the danger involve at the virus. Surviving except if they visit the manual method which may take time to consult.

·              OBSERVATION / EXPERIENCE METHOD: we went around some various hospitals, and personally observed was conducted that the existing system for Ebola Treatment and diagnose is not effective enough. From our experience, when some patients’ personal data (PD) are required serious stress is undergoes in searching for their personal information due to time limit and period given for the consultation and the submission. Other experience is the loss of file and data’s. So if their information is required likewise by the other doctors and if their own cannot be provided within giving time, definitely such patients may not disqualify.

2.5       ANALYSIS OF THE EXISTING SYSTEM

This section examines the way Ebola Treatment system is handled manually over the years at FMC, Bida Nigeria. The traditional way or manual method of processing Ebola Treatment involves files and books this has to do with an patients’ to check his/her files in a catalogue where they are kept before searching for their own file, due to some of this reason the patient may undergoes, some other patients file will be mixed up together while some can even be misplaced as a result of perception.

2.6       STATEMENT OF PROBLEM / PROBLEMS OF THE EXISTING SYSTEM There are some problems associated with the existing system which include the following:-

INACCURATE DIAGNOSES: This a problem which occurred which no one can overcome; incorrect diagnoses of proper vaccine for the suppression of Ebola Virus at the Nursery stage, that is when the patients contact this virus at the early state.

TIME FACTOR:- It has been noticed by the FMC, Bida Nigeria that the time scheduled for processing each patients’ information or patients’ personal data are very tight, which makes staffs undergo a strong time wasting when it comes to diagnose of the virus and collection.

CHANGE OF FILE LOCATION: - This is another problem faced with the hospital system in keeping patients record in manual ways, so many issues might occur in the hospital that can lead to relocation of file other document from one office to another, and at that process some file can be remove while even some can be misplaced as a result of movement of the files from a location to another.

2.7       SOLUTION TO THE PROBLEMS

With the introduction of the new system “Expert system on the treatment of EBOLA virus” the problems associated above shall be reduced due to the following reasons:

There will be no need for staffs to go far away to the catalogue to search for any patient record because all there last and information where stored into the system and can be accessed anytime patients comes for future diagnoses, all what staff needed is to click the program Icon and view patients last diagnose/treatment and the proposed drug. Also, there will be no need for time factor which affect the existing system. staff will be able to review patients’ profile and print it out at his/her convenient period of time if the need for such record arises, furthermore, there will also be opportunity for patients’ to see the level of treatment compare the first stage of appearance and others enquiries can be made by the patients him/her self’s.

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