Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN)
www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/gphin/index-eng.php

Purpose
Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN) provides reports of disease outbreaks primarily derived from news media sources to WHO, government and public health leaders, and subscribers interested in global health.

History and operational characteristics
GPHIN was created in 1998 by Health Canada’s Laboratory Centre for Disease Control in collaboration with WHO. It is a fee-based electronic reporting service that searches electronic global media sources for reports of public health importance and provides them to its subscribers. (Subscription fees vary depending on the type and size of the organization requesting the service. Free trial periods of 30 to 90 days are occasionally permitted.)

Each day, GPHIN scans thousands of electronic media reports from news source providers such as Factiva and Al Bawaba. Factiva provides coverage of news reports in Eng­lish, French, Russian, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, and Spanish; Arabic news reports are obtained from Al Bawaba. Farsi news reports are manually entered into the system by the GPHIN analyst responsible for Farsi content. GPHIN also receives official disease outbreak reports from ministries of health. GPHIN uses an automated system to make a first determination of priority, with final determination made by a team of analysts. Approximately 7–10 alerts are emailed or posted to the GPHIN website daily, the majority of which focus on infectious diseases in humans and animals. Alerts of other significant events involving chemical and radio­active exposure, food safety and security, product safety, and natural disasters also are emailed. Alerts may include commentary on: estimation of an incident’s magnitude, geographic distribution of the incident, control and prevention measures that have been implemented (and/or considered), concerns of the general public, and political implications.

Most GPHIN subscribers are from government or­ganizations and other organizations interested in public health, but others come from nongovernmental organi­zations, business, the military, and other organizations such the North American Treaty Organization (NATO). WHO also has access to the GPHIN web postings and alerts; GPHIN news reports comprise approximately 40% of WHO verified disease outbreaks.31 GPHIN has recently begun a collaborative effort with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to create a program for information sharing and event verification.

Regions/countries served
Worldwide; articles currently reviewed in seven languages: Arabic, English, French, Russian, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, and Spanish.

Funding/budget/staff
Annual budget (including operational costs and system development) is approximately $3.5 million Canadian. All subscription fees are used solely for system development. The bulk of GPHIN funding comes from the Canadian government. GPHIN operates with seven multilingual analysts.