| EU develops new intelligence system to identify public health threats |
| Tuesday,August 14,2007 Posted: 19:20 BJT(20 GMT) |
| From:www.chinaview.cn Article type:Reproduced |
BRUSSELS, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) -- A medical intelligence system has been developed to help health authorities identify disease outbreaks or industrial accidents as early as possible and react promptly, the European Union's executive arm said Monday. The new system, called MediSys, can also provide invaluable information on how to tackle a major incident such as a bio-terrorist attack, said the European Commission (EC). It said that the system can constantly collect and sort information from over 1,000 news and 120 public health websites in32 languages. Although traditional surveillance systems monitor death rates, the utilization of health services, abnormal patterns, changing laboratory characteristics and exposure to risks related to the environment, food or animals, some public or animal health threats can still go unnoticed. But they may be reported by the local press or other lesser known sources, and the challenge is how to identify them, the EC explained. By inputting pre-defined keywords or combinations, MediSys trawls the web and sorts information into three primary categories: Diseases, Bioterrorism, and Other Threats. Articles or "hits" are then classified in more precise categories such as "AIDS-HIV," "Respiratory infections," "Avian flu," "Legionella," "Anthrax" or "Nuclear safety." The system can then send an automatic alert by e-mail or SMS (short message service) to decision-makers on permanent standby based on the level of new articles retrieved and the detected keywords. Taking as an example a recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Britain, the European Commission said that MediSys detected a sudden jump in the detected cases in news reports and then automatically sent e-mail and SMS alerts to public health officials across Europe. Editor: Jiang Yuxia |
| (Source: English Site of Cyprus) |
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