EpidemicsTracking, mapping epidemics in order to limit their spread
Researchers are using the new Biosurveillance Gateway Web site to map epidemics in order better to understand and prevent deadly diseases. The Web site relies on lab databases and tools from around the world, so that registered health officials and researchers can track outbreaks better to predict how a pathogen might spread in the United States and elsewhere. Though still in its beta state, the Web site provides spread information and mapping on a variety of diseases, including ones that only infect animals or plants. Theoretical computational software is integrated into the maps to help predict what a future epidemic might do, and the histories of recorded outbreaks across the globe are presented for comparison.
A team of scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico are using the new Biosurveillance Gateway Web site to map epidemics in order better to understand and prevent deadly diseases.
As the Santa Fe New Mexican reports, the gateway will track outbreaks of ebola, measles, and other diseases, beginning with patient zero. It is the latest development in the field of biosurvelliance, the study of how the emergence and spread of diseases can be plotted, understood, and stopped.
“In the earliest stages of outbreak, there’s this critical period of time that officials can enact certain interventions to minimize and prevent the spread,” said Nick Generous, molecular biologist who helped to develop the system. “So, how do you decide what to do?”
The Web site relies on lab databases and tools from around the world, so that registered health officials and researchers can track outbreaks better to predict how a pathogen might spread in the United States and elsewhere. The effort is a chance for LANL to pool together many resources available to the lab and make them available for professionals in the field. As old diseases like measles re-emerge, and new ones such as Dengue fever first take root, the Biosurveillance Gateway could become more and more useful.
Recent events such as the measles outbreak at Disneyland in California have put health officials on the lookout for additional predictive and preventative measures, so this is a perfect time for the work of the scientists at LANL.
“Most people associate LANL with the nuclear weapons research side of things, but what most people don’t realize is that we do a lot of biological and epidemiological research as well, everything from helping develop AIDS vaccines to predicting how disease outbreaks will unfold, like the H1N1 virus in 2009,” said Generous. “All these different efforts have never really been centralized in a single location.”
Though still in its beta state, the Web site provides spread information and mapping on a variety of diseases, including ones that only infect animals or plants. Theoretical computational software is integrated into the maps to help predict what a future epidemic might do, and the histories of recorded outbreaks across the globe are presented for comparison.
The project was first begun by Generous and others roughly a year-and-a-half ago, shortly after President Barack Obama outlined his National Strategy for Biosurveillance. Obama referred to the initiative as “essential to national security.”
“Really, this is the idea of one health,” added Generous. “You have to understand the intricacy, the whole of the system, to understand the spread of disease.”
