Conference organized by:

Center for Biosecurity of UPMC

World Health Organization Communicable Disease Surveillance and Response Office

Conference sponsored by:

The Nuclear Threat Initiative

Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN): Early Warning System for Global Public Health Threats
Presenter: Abla Mawudeku

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With globalization, it is becoming increasingly easy for local disease outbreaks to become international epidemics, making critical the timely exchange of information between local and international agencies. However, while it is becoming ever more important that information about threats to the global public's health be relayed rapidly, traditional and existing public health surveillance systems are largely inadequate to the task. Mawudeku presented the Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN), an informal surveillance system that uses advanced technology to provide an early warning about potential public health threats to the international community.

GPHIN continuously monitors more than 10,000 electronic sources of information worldwide (radio, television, newspapers, newswire alerts, etc.), employing multi-language search criteria to find terms that may indicate news of an outbreak. Alerts are then filtered by GPHIN analysts and disseminated to subscribers around the globe, who can then investigate and verify the existence of any threats to the public's health. Indeed, GPHIN is responsible for the initial reporting of approximately half of all reported events of potential public health concern to the WHO.

GPHIN can be accessed at any time from anywhere in the world through an internet connection. It monitors and disseminates information in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish. Initially designed to monitor news on human health only, GPHIN's scope has been expanded to search for news on animal and plant diseases, chemical and radiological exposures, unsafe products, and natural disasters. The system is also proving versatile in its usefulness�it can help identify control measures proving effective in an outbreak, or the concerns of the public. Furthermore, GPHIN's infrastructure may be useful for other industries searching for global information. In the future, GPHIN plans on implementing new technologies, including predictive modeling, GIS mapping, and speech recognition.

- Summary by Brad Kramer

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