EpidemicsTool developed to monitor pandemic threats
An Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT) tool, known as “Predict,” will enable scientists and the public to track outbreaks of communicable animal diseases; Predict will monitor data from 50,000 Web sites with information from World Health Organization (WHO) alerts, online discussions by experts, wildlife trade reports, and local news
Created with a grant from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), an Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT) tool, known as “Predict,” will enable scientists and the public to track outbreaks of communicable animal diseases. The goal of the program is to pre-empt or combat, at their source, newly emerging diseases of animal origin that could threaten human health.
The tool is being produced by experts on human and animal diseases from a consortium that first came together in 2009 during the pandemic of H1N1 swine flu. The experts have focused their attention on animal diseases that infect humans, such as the virus that caused the outbreak of SARS and the viruses (Ebola included) that are believed to have originated in bats.
Predict will monitor data from 50,000 Web sites with information from World Health Organization (WHO) alerts, online discussions by experts, wildlife trade reports, and local news.
Damien Joly, an associate director of wildlife health monitoring for the Wildlife Conservation Society, said “We strongly believe in public access to the data we collect. It doesn’t do public health much good to collect data and let it sit while it awaits publication.”
The EPT program is being managed by USAID with technical support from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the United States Department of Agriculture.
