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WHO's Plague Hunters.
In Geneva, in a nondescript office building is the World Headquarters for detecting disease outbreaks.
Global Outbreak and Alert Response Network, headed by Dr. Mike Ryan.
Nerve center global effort to track World hq for detecting disease outbreaks.
New diseases about one a year
Un World Health org.
Health officials on alert for saars
saars epidemic
possible return
interconnectedness health of all not just rich
world health org
global pub health syst fragmented
next epidemic ready in the wings
Global outbreak and alert response network is actually only a shoe string with a
dozen staff, it's mission is to speed up response to disease outbreaks.
epidemics break from development to outbreak in days or weeks or months.
tracks outbreaks
concept of formalized reporting classic concept of surveillance -- glacial pace takes months, fail
now trolling for roomers of disease.
informal contacts, "...sifting through that information trying to pick out the signal from the noise" Dr. Ryan.
Chase down roomers and reports. Punishing pace.
Computers help overcome lack of greater equipment.
key wording through the net.
using the crawler as a kick start, not complete accurate, but ...
Worried about flood of false alarms.
Looking for the canaries. Which clusters of info are meaningful?
Careful not to cry wolf: is it common cold or saars?
Health is a security issue.
17 mil a year for this op is a bargain. |