Design Simulation and Implementation of a Microcontroller Based Electronic Notification System for Disease Surveillance

Abstract

Infectious disease outbreaks have been a challenge in the public health sector, and developing countries like Nigeria are not an exception; the rate of such outbreaks has risen within recent years. The recent re-emerging and new infectious disease outbreaks in Nigeria, including the Ebola virus disease and other epidemic-prone diseases, necessitate a rapid public health response. As a result, it becomes necessary to improve the current system for notifying and monitoring communicable diseases. In this work, a microcontroller-based SMS notification system for disease surveillance uses an ATmega328P on an Arduino microcontroller board. It includes a GSM module (SIM900A), which uses a registered SIM from any network to connect to the mobile network. It is used as a notification system to send reports to different health workers to create awareness during disease outbreaks and facilitate the early detection and reporting of disease for the treatment of victims. The construction of a microcontroller-based SMS notification system for disease surveillance comprises two push buttons, one to select the disease and the other to send an SMS for the selected disease to create awareness whenever an outbreak occurs. This is realized, with the aid of the GSM module (SIM900A) used, which is responsible for sending the SMS when connected to the mobile network. It runs based on the AT command (attention command), which works on the UART protocol to send the desired SMS text to the designated phone numbers.