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Live download and parsing of Sri Lanka Weekly Epidemiological Reports (WER) — dengue surveillance data by RDHS district

Project description

srilanka-epi

PyPI version Python License: MIT CI

Production-grade Python library to live-download and parse Weekly Epidemiological Reports (WER) published by the Epidemiology Unit, Ministry of Health & Indigenous Medicine, Sri Lanka.

Built as part of DengueSense LK — Final Year Development Project, ICBT Campus / Cardiff Metropolitan University (2026).


Features

Feature Details
🔴 Live data Auto-scrapes epid.gov.lk — no URL registration needed
📄 PDF parsing pdfplumber word-coordinate parser
🔍 OCR fallback pdf2image + Tesseract for corrupted-font PDFs
🗺️ Province mapping All 9 provinces → 26 RDHS districts
🧹 Auto PDF cleanup PDFs deleted after parsing by default — only the CSV stays
🐍 Typed Full PEP 484 type hints + py.typed marker
Tested pytest suite with 40+ unit tests
📦 PyPI-ready pip install srilanka-epi

Installation

pip install srilanka-epi

With OCR fallback (for corrupted-font PDFs):

pip install "srilanka-epi[ocr]"

OCR also requires:


Quick Start

🔴 Live Data — Get the Latest WER

import srilanka_epi

# One-shot: scrape epid.gov.lk, download PDF, parse dengue data
result = srilanka_epi.get_latest_wer()

print(result["metadata"])
# {'vol': 53, 'no': 18, 'week_no': 18, 'year': 2026, 'week_range': '29th April – 5th May 2026'}

print(result["dengue"])
#           rdhs  week_cases  cumulative_cases  week_no  year  vol  wer_no
# 0      Colombo         142              4521       18  2026   53      18
# 1      Gampaha          89              3102       18  2026   53      18
# ...

🔴 Live Data — Get a Specific Issue

result = srilanka_epi.get_wer(volume=53, number=17)
df = result["dengue"]
print(df.head())

🔴 Live Data — Full-Year Time Series

# Download all 2026 issues and build a time series
df = srilanka_epi.get_dengue_timeseries(volume=53)

# Province breakdown
df = srilanka_epi.add_province(df)
print(df.groupby("province")["week_cases"].sum().sort_values(ascending=False))

# Export
df.to_csv("dengue_2026.csv", index=False)

📋 List All Available Issues

issues = srilanka_epi.list_available_wers()
for (vol, no), url in issues.items():
    print(f"Vol {vol} No {no:02d}: {url}")

Parsing a Local PDF

from srilanka_epi import parse_wer_pdf

# From file path
result = parse_wer_pdf("WER_Vol53_No18.pdf")

# From bytes
with open("WER.pdf", "rb") as f:
    result = parse_wer_pdf(f.read(), volume=53, number=18)

print(result["metadata"])  # {'vol': 53, 'no': 18, 'week_no': 18, 'year': 2026, ...}
print(result["dengue"])    # pd.DataFrame

Hybrid Parser (pdfplumber + OCR fallback)

Some WER PDFs have corrupted font encoding. Use extract_dengue_data() for automatic OCR fallback:

from srilanka_epi import extract_dengue_data

result = extract_dengue_data("WER_Vol53_No18.pdf")
print(result["method"])  # "pdfplumber" or "ocr"
print(result["dengue"])

Full API Reference

Live Data Functions

Function Description
get_latest_wer(...) Scrape, download, and parse the most recent WER
get_wer(volume, number, ...) Download and parse a specific WER issue
get_dengue_timeseries(volume, ...) Full-year dengue time series
list_available_wers(refresh=False) List all issues on epid.gov.lk

PDF Parsing

Function Description
parse_wer_pdf(source, ...) Fast pdfplumber parser
extract_dengue_data(source, ...) Hybrid parser with OCR fallback

Dengue Helpers

Function Description
add_province(df) Add province column to dengue DataFrame
weekly_national_total(df) Aggregate to national weekly totals
top_districts(df, week_no, year, n) Top N districts by weekly cases

Download Utilities

Function Description
download_wer_pdf(volume, number, ...) Download one PDF (live URL)
download_range(volume, start_no, end_no, ...) Batch download and parse range of issues
build_dengue_timeseries(results, district) Combine parsed results
to_csv(df, path) Export to CSV

Scraper Primitives

Function Description
scrape_wer_index(url, ...) Fetch + parse the WER index page
fetch_wer_index(url, ...) Download raw HTML of WER index
parse_wer_links(html) Extract PDF URLs from HTML
get_latest_wer_url(...) Return ((vol, no), url) for the latest issue

District & Province Constants

import srilanka_epi

# All 26 RDHS districts (+ SRILANKA national total)
print(srilanka_epi.DISTRICTS)

# Province → district mapping
print(srilanka_epi.PROVINCE_MAP)          # {district: province}
print(srilanka_epi.WESTERN_PROVINCE)     # ['Colombo', 'Gampaha', 'Kalutara']
print(srilanka_epi.NORTHERN_PROVINCE)    # ['Jaffna', 'Kilinochchi', 'Mannar', ...]

Logging

The library uses Python's standard logging module. To see debug output:

import logging
logging.basicConfig(level=logging.INFO)

import srilanka_epi
result = srilanka_epi.get_latest_wer()

Data Source

All data is sourced from the Epidemiology Unit, Ministry of Health & Indigenous Medicine, Sri Lanka.

Please acknowledge the Epidemiology Unit as the primary data source in any publications.


Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for setup instructions, code style guide, and the PR process.


Citation

@software{weerakoon2026srilankaepi,
  author    = {Weerakoon, R.B.H.G. Chathura Kavindu Bandara},
  title     = {srilanka-epi: Python library for live Sri Lanka Weekly Epidemiological Report data},
  year      = {2026},
  version   = {2.0.0},
  url       = {https://github.com/chathurakavinduweerakoon/srilanka-epi},
  note      = {ICBT Campus / Cardiff Metropolitan University}
}

License

MIT License — see LICENSE for full text.

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