ProMED-mail

Last updated
ProMED-mail
ProMED-mai.jpeg
Developer International Society for Infectious Diseases
Initial release1994
Marketing target Public health
Official website www.promedmail.org

Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases (also known as ProMED-mail, abbreviated ProMED) is among the largest publicly available emerging diseases and outbreak reporting systems in the world. [1] The purpose of ProMED is to promote communication amongst the international infectious disease community, including scientists, physicians, veterinarians, epidemiologists, public health professionals, and others interested in infectious diseases on a global scale. Founded in 1994, ProMED has pioneered the concept of electronic, Internet-based emerging disease and outbreak detection reporting. [2] In 1999, ProMED became a program of the International Society for Infectious Diseases. As of 2016, ProMED has more than 75,000 subscribers in over 185 countries. [3] With an average of 13 posts per day, ProMED provides users with up-to-date information concerning infectious disease outbreaks on a global scale.[ citation needed ]

Contents

ProMED's guiding principles include:

One of the essential global health priorities is the timely recognition and reporting of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. Early recognition can enable coordinated and rapid responses to an outbreak, preventing catastrophic morbidity and mortality. Additionally, early detection can alleviate grave economic hardship brought upon by pandemics and emerging diseases. Burgeoning globalization of commerce, finance, manufacturing, and services has fostered ever-increasing movement of people, animals, plants, food, and animal feed. Other contributing factors to the risk of new pathogens emerging and known pathogens re-emerging include climate change, urbanization, land use changes, and political instability. Outbreaks that begin in the most remote parts of the world now spread swiftly to urban centres in countries far away. The epidemiological data in ProMED posts has been used to estimate mortality rates and demographic parameters for specific diseases. [4] [5]

The severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003 and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) outbreak in 2012 demonstrated the importance of early identification for emerging disease occurrences. The initial outbreak reports in both events were posted by astute clinicians. The use of non-traditional information sources can provide prompt information to the international community on emerging infectious disease problems that have yet to be officially reported. [6] The early dissemination of information may lead to rapid official confirmation of ongoing outbreaks.

The Epicore programme, launched in March 2016 by various organizations including the patrons of ProMED-mail, makes use of volunteers throughout the world to find and report outbreaks using non-traditional methods. [7]

History

Under the auspices of the Federation of American Scientists, ProMED-mail was founded in 1994 by Dr. Stephen Morse, then of Rockefeller University, Dr. Barbara Rosenberg of the State University of New York at Purchase, and Dr. Jack Woodall, then of the New York State Department of Health. [8] Originally envisioned as a direct scientist-to-scientist network, ProMED rapidly grew into a prototype outbreak reporting and discussion list, especially after the 1995 Ebola outbreak. The idea of a global network was first proposed by Donald A. Henderson in 1989. [9]

ProMED played a crucial role in identifying the SARS outbreak early in 2003. [10] An astute physician in Silver Spring, Maryland, Stephen O. Cunnion, MD, PhD, MPH, submitted the first report to the database for this emerging outbreak, allowing the ProMED community to track the outbreak nearly two months in advance of the worldwide alert. [11] The email read: “Have you heard of an epidemic in Guangzhou? An acquaintance of mine . . . reports that the hospitals there have been closed and people are dying.” It was one month later before the Chinese government officially acknowledged the outbreak.

In 2012, the users of ProMED were again some of the first to identify the outbreak of MERS. A physician was responsible for identifying the outbreak and reporting the event to the ProMED community, which was posted online. [12] Eight days after the initial report, the Saudi Health Ministry announced the diagnosis of a new form of coronavirus.[ citation needed ]

The ProMED-mail system grew from 1994 in parallel with Public Health Agency of Canada's similar Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN),. [13]

At 23:59 on 30 December 2019, ProMED-mail received its first communication about the COVID-19 outbreak. [14] [15]

On 3 August 2023, 21 out of the 38 paid moderators and editors for the service went on strike, citing lack of support from ISID. [16] [17]

Disease surveillance and reporting

MERS case distribution graphic from Eurosurveillance 2013 Volume 18, Issue 39, Article 3, annotated by ProMED MERS Case Distribution Graphic.jpg
MERS case distribution graphic from Eurosurveillance 2013 Volume 18, Issue 39, Article 3, annotated by ProMED
Locations of the 45 ProMED moderators who review and provide commentary on reports published to the ProMED-mail database. ProMED-mail moderator map.png
Locations of the 45 ProMED moderators who review and provide commentary on reports published to the ProMED-mail database.
Language regions of ProMED-mail and year they were added to the database. ProMED Language Regions.jpg
Language regions of ProMED-mail and year they were added to the database.

The importance of using unofficial sources of information for public health surveillance has become increasingly recognized. [19] Sometimes referred to as “event-based surveillance” or “epidemic intelligence,” informal disease reporting services, pioneered by ProMED, have become a crucial component of the overall global infectious disease surveillance picture. [20] According to the WHO Epidemic & Pandemic Alert & Response, more than 60% of the initial outbreak reports come from informal sources, including ProMED-mail.[ citation needed ]

ProMED-mail publishes reports to the website ProMEDmail.org in addition to sending e-mails to service subscribers. There is no cost for subscription to the reporting network. ProMED encourages subscribers to contribute data, respond to requests for information, and collaborate in outbreak investigations and prevention efforts.[ citation needed ]

Posts are published on a real-time basis. Reports detail infectious disease outbreaks with geotags and links to related media articles and other ProMED posts. Each report is screened and edited by a staff of expert moderators, ensuring the validity of the published information. There are 45 moderators for ProMED stationed throughout the world. Moderators review reports submitted within their region of oversight, drawing on their knowledge of the region and infrastructure to provide accurate descriptions of the outbreak event.[ citation needed ]

As ProMED-mail is an independent program of the non-government, nonprofit International Society for Infectious Diseases, this ensures the avoidance of delay or suppression of disease reporting by governments for bureaucratic or strategic reasons. To provide access to a global audience, versions of ProMED are available in several languages and cover different regions, including ProMED-ESP (Spanish), ProMED-PORT (Portuguese), ProMED-RUS (Russian), ProMED-FRA (French), ProMED-MENA (Middle East and North Africa), ProMED-SoAs (South Asia and Arabic Summaries), as well as English-language versions ProMED-MBDS (Mekong Basin region of Southeast Asia) and ProMED-EAFR (Africa).

One Health

One Health is the principle that human, animal, and environmental health are inextricably linked and should no longer be researched and learned in a siloed manner. [21] ProMED embodied this concept in the sphere of infectious disease reporting since its inception. It is estimated that 70% of emerging human diseases originate in other animal species – termed zoonotic diseases. As diseases in both animal and agriculture species have health implications for humans, ProMED includes posts on emerging animal diseases and diseases related to agriculturally important plants due to their impact on human survival.[ citation needed ]

Collaborations

ProMED-mail and HealthMap were awarded a grant from Google.org's Predict and Prevent initiative in October 2008. This collaboration combined ProMED-mail's global network of human, animal, and ecosystem health specialists with HealthMap's digital detection efforts.[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zoonosis</span> Disease that can be transmitted from other species to humans

A zoonosis or zoonotic disease is an infectious disease of humans caused by a pathogen that can jump from a non-human to a human and vice versa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SARS</span> Disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a viral respiratory disease of zoonotic origin caused by the virus SARS-CoV-1, the first identified strain of the SARS-related coronavirus. The first known cases occurred in November 2002, and the syndrome caused the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak. In the 2010s, Chinese scientists traced the virus through the intermediary of Asian palm civets to cave-dwelling horseshoe bats in Xiyang Yi Ethnic Township, Yunnan.

Public health surveillance is, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), "the continuous, systematic collection, analysis and interpretation of health-related data needed for the planning, implementation, and evaluation of public health practice." Public health surveillance may be used to track emerging health-related issues at an early stage and find active solutions in a timely manner. Surveillance systems are generally called upon to provide information regarding when and where health problems are occurring and who is affected.

E-epidemiology is the science underlying the acquisition, maintenance and application of epidemiological knowledge and information using digital media such as the internet, mobile phones, digital paper, digital TV. E-epidemiology also refers to the large-scale epidemiological studies that are increasingly conducted through distributed global collaborations enabled by the Internet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emerging infectious disease</span> Infectious disease of emerging pathogen, often novel in its outbreak range or transmission mode

An emerging infectious disease (EID) is an infectious disease whose incidence has increased recently, and could increase in the near future. The minority that are capable of developing efficient transmission between humans can become major public and global concerns as potential causes of epidemics or pandemics. Their many impacts can be economic and societal, as well as clinical. EIDs have been increasing steadily since at least 1940.

An emergent virus is a virus that is either newly appeared, notably increasing in incidence/geographic range or has the potential to increase in the near future. Emergent viruses are a leading cause of emerging infectious diseases and raise public health challenges globally, given their potential to cause outbreaks of disease which can lead to epidemics and pandemics. As well as causing disease, emergent viruses can also have severe economic implications. Recent examples include the SARS-related coronaviruses, which have caused the 2002-2004 outbreak of SARS (SARS-CoV-1) and the 2019–21 pandemic of COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2). Other examples include the human immunodeficiency virus which causes HIV/AIDS; the viruses responsible for Ebola; the H5N1 influenza virus responsible for avian flu; and H1N1/09, which caused the 2009 swine flu pandemic. Viral emergence in humans is often a consequence of zoonosis, which involves a cross-species jump of a viral disease into humans from other animals. As zoonotic viruses exist in animal reservoirs, they are much more difficult to eradicate and can therefore establish persistent infections in human populations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Disease surveillance</span> Monitoring spread of disease to establish patterns of progression

Disease surveillance is an epidemiological practice by which the spread of disease is monitored in order to establish patterns of progression. The main role of disease surveillance is to predict, observe, and minimize the harm caused by outbreak, epidemic, and pandemic situations, as well as increase knowledge about which factors contribute to such circumstances. A key part of modern disease surveillance is the practice of disease case reporting.

Disease is described as a decrease in performance of normal functions of an individual caused by many factors, which is not limited to infectious agents. Furthermore, wildlife disease is a disease when one of the hosts includes a wildlife species. In many cases, wildlife hosts can act as a reservoir of diseases that spillover into domestic animals, people and other species. Wildlife diseases spread through both direct contact between two individual animals or indirectly through the environment. Additionally, human industry has created the possibility for cross-species transmission through the wildlife trade.Furthermore, there are many relationships that must be considered when discussing wildlife disease, which are represented through the Epidemiological Triad Model. This model describes the relationship between a pathogen, host and the environment. There are many routes to infection of a susceptible host by a pathogen, but when the host becomes infected that host now has the potential to infect other hosts. Whereas, environmental factors affect pathogen persistence and spread through host movement and interactions with other species. An example to apply to the ecological triad is Lyme disease, where changes in environment have changed the distribution of Lyme disease and its vector, the Ixodes tick. The recent increase in wildlife disease occurrences is cause for concern among conservationists, as many vulnerable species do not have the population to recover from devastating disease outbreaks.

Tele-epidemiology is the application of telecommunications to epidemiological research and application, including space-based and internet-based systems.

HealthMap is a freely accessible, automated electronic information system for monitoring, organizing, and visualizing reports of global disease outbreaks according to geography, time, and infectious disease agent. In operation since September 2006, and created by John Brownstein, PhD and Clark Freifeld, PhD, HealthMap acquires data from a variety of freely available electronic media sources to obtain a comprehensive view of the current global state of infectious diseases.

The International Society for Disease Surveillance (ISDS) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, based in Boston, Massachusetts, dedicated to the improvement of public health by advancing the science and practice of disease surveillance. ISDS facilitates interdisciplinary collaboration, promotes and conducts research, education, and advocacy. ISDS's 400+ membership represents professional and academic subject matter experts in the fields of public health surveillance, clinical practice, health informatics, health policy, and other areas related to national and global health surveillance. ISDS holds an annual national conference for the public health surveillance community. The ISDS is a member society of the Global Health Workforce Alliance founded in 2006.

The International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID), established in 1986, is a nonprofit organization that monitors infectious diseases on a global scale. It also offers grants and fellowships, publishes a journal, and runs online learning platforms for sharing information on managing infectious diseases. It is based in Brookline, Massachusetts, US. The organization solicits donations from the general public, as well as governments, foundations, and the pharmaceutical industry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zika virus outbreak timeline</span>

This article primarily covers the chronology of the 2015–16 Zika virus epidemic. Flag icons denote the first announcements of confirmed cases by the respective nation-states, their first deaths, and relevant sessions and announcements of the World Health Organization (WHO), and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), as well as relevant virological, epidemiological, and entomological studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2016 Angola and DR Congo yellow fever outbreak</span> Disease outbreak in Africa

On 20 January 2016, the health minister of Angola reported 23 cases of yellow fever with 7 deaths among Eritrean and Congolese citizens living in Angola in Viana municipality, a suburb of the capital of Luanda. The first cases were reported in Eritrean visitors beginning on 5 December 2015 and confirmed by the Pasteur WHO reference laboratory in Dakar, Senegal in January. The outbreak was classified as an urban cycle of yellow fever transmission, which can spread rapidly. A preliminary finding that the strain of the yellow fever virus was closely related to a strain identified in a 1971 outbreak in Angola was confirmed in August 2016. Moderators from ProMED-mail stressed the importance of initiating a vaccination campaign immediately to prevent further spread. The CDC classified the outbreak as Watch Level 2 on 7 April 2016. The WHO declared it a grade 2 event on its emergency response framework having moderate public health consequences.

John Brownstein is a Canadian epidemiologist and Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School as well as the Chief Innovation Officer at Boston Children’s Hospital. His research focuses on development of computational methods in epidemiology for applications to public health also known as computational epidemiology or e-epidemiology He is also the founder of several global public health surveillance systems including HealthMap. He is most known for his work on global tracking of disease outbreaks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John P. Woodall</span> American entomologist

John Payne Woodall (1935–2016), known as Jack Woodall, was an American-British entomologist and virologist who made significant contributions to the study of arboviruses in South America, the Caribbean and Africa. He did research on the causative agents of dengue fever, Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever, o'nyong'nyong fever, yellow fever, Zika fever, and others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FluTrackers</span> Website and early warning system

FluTrackers is a website, online forum and early warning system which tracks and gathers information relating to a wide range of infectious diseases, including flu and assists in how to use it to inform the general public. It was co-founded by Sharon Sanders & Jeremy Walsh in 2006, initially to investigate seasonal influenza, novel influenza, and chikungunya. Later, it extended to include Ebola, Zika and drug resistant bacteria. In the first ten months of 2017, it received 18 million views.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael J. Ryan (doctor)</span> Irish doctor and Chief Executive Director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme

Michael Joseph Ryan is an Irish epidemiologist and former trauma surgeon, specialising in infectious disease and public health. He is executive director of the World Health Organization's Health Emergencies Programme, leading the team responsible for the international containment and treatment of COVID-19. Ryan has held leadership positions and has worked on various outbreak response teams in the field to eradicate the spread of diseases including bacillary dysentery, cholera, Crimean–Congo hemorrhagic fever, Ebola, Marburg virus disease, measles, meningitis, relapsing fever, Rift Valley fever, SARS, and Shigellosis.

Pandemic prevention is the organization and management of preventive measures against pandemics. Those include measures to reduce causes of new infectious diseases and measures to prevent outbreaks and epidemics from becoming pandemics.

The Connecting Organizations for Regional Disease Surveillance (CORDS) is a "regional infectious disease surveillance network that neighboring countries worldwide are organizing to control cross-border outbreaks at their source." In 2012, CORDS was registered as a legal, non-profit international organization in Lyon, France. As of 2021, CORDS was composed of "six regional member networks, working in 28 countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Europe."

References

  1. ↑ Brownstein, John S.; Freifeld, Clark C.; Madoff, Lawrence C. (21 May 2009). "Digital Disease Detection — Harnessing the Web for Public Health Surveillance". New England Journal of Medicine. 360 (21): 2153–2157. doi:10.1056/NEJMp0900702. PMC   2917042 . PMID   19423867.
  2. ↑ Times, Los Angeles (13 January 2007). "Website for the germ-obsessed". Los Angeles Times . Archived from the original on 11 June 2016. Retrieved 20 May 2016.
  3. ↑ "ProMED-mail". www.promedmail.org. Archived from the original on 1 June 2015. Retrieved 21 May 2016.
  4. ↑ Nasner-Posso, KM; Cruz-Calderón, S; Montúfar-Andrade, FE; Dance, DA; Rodriguez-Morales, AJ (June 2015). "Human melioidosis reported by ProMED". International Journal of Infectious Diseases. 35: 103–6. doi:10.1016/j.ijid.2015.05.009. PMC   4508390 . PMID   25975651.
  5. ↑ Ince, Y; Yasa, C; Metin, M; Sonmez, M; Meram, E; Benkli, B; Ergonul, O (September 2014). "Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever infections reported by ProMED". International Journal of Infectious Diseases. 26: 44–6. doi: 10.1016/j.ijid.2014.04.005 . PMID   24947424.
  6. ↑ Keller, M; Blench, M; Tolentino, H; Freifeld, CC; Mandl, KD; Mawudeku, A; Eysenbach, G; Brownstein, JS (May 2009). "Use of unstructured event-based reports for global infectious disease surveillance". Emerging Infectious Diseases. 15 (5): 689–95. doi:10.3201/eid1505.081114. PMC   2687026 . PMID   19402953.
  7. ↑ "ProMED Experts Share their Insights on Disease Surveillance and EpiCore | Skoll Global Threats Fund". www.skollglobalthreats.org. Archived from the original on 11 June 2016. Retrieved 21 May 2016.
  8. ↑ Madoff, LC; Woodall, JP (2005). "The internet and the global monitoring of emerging diseases: lessons from the first 10 years of ProMED-mail". Archives of Medical Research. 36 (6): 724–30. doi: 10.1016/j.arcmed.2005.06.005 . PMID   16216654. Archived from the original on 2020-04-12. Retrieved 2019-07-05.
  9. ↑ Morse, SS (February 2014). "Public Health Disease Surveillance Networks" (PDF). Microbiology Spectrum. 2 (1): OH–0002–2012. doi:10.1128/microbiolspec.OH-0002-2012. ISBN   9781555818425. PMID   26082122. S2CID   42392092. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2020-02-12.
  10. ↑ Yong, Ed (2011). "Disease trackers". BMJ. 343: d4117. doi:10.1136/bmj.d4117. PMID   21729998. S2CID   45190534.
  11. ↑ "Promed Post". Archived from the original on 2015-11-21. Retrieved 2015-11-20.
  12. ↑ "Promed Post". Archived from the original on 2015-11-21. Retrieved 2015-11-20.
  13. ↑ Bond, Katherine C.; MacFarlane, Sarah B.; Burke, Charlanne; Ungchusak, Kumnuan; Wibulpolprasert, Suwit (2013). "The Evolution and Expansion of Regional Disease Surveillance Networks and Their Role in Mitigating the Threat of Infectious Disease Outbreaks". Emerging Health Threats Journal. 6: 19913. doi: 10.3402/ehtj.v6i0.19913 . PMC   3557911 . PMID   23362414.
  14. ↑ "UNDIAGNOSED PNEUMONIA - CHINA (HUBEI): REQUEST FOR INFORMATION". No. Archive Number: 20191230.6864153. ProMED-mail. 2019-12-30. Archived from the original on 2020-11-22. Retrieved 2020-11-23.
  15. ↑ Picard, André (8 August 2023). "Early disease-outbreak warnings matter. So why is a major alert system being hollowed out?". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 12 March 2024.
  16. ↑ Reardon, Sara (4 August 2023). "Long-running ProMED email service for alerting world to disease outbreaks is in trouble". Science. American Association for the Advancement of Science. Archived from the original on 6 August 2023. Retrieved 7 August 2023.
  17. ↑ Kozlov, Max (10 August 2023). "Key alert system for disease outbreaks is in crisis — can it be saved?". Nature. 620 (7974): 476–477. Bibcode:2023Natur.620..476K. doi:10.1038/d41586-023-02539-z. ISSN   1476-4687. PMID   37563475. S2CID   260807083. Archived from the original on 13 August 2023. Retrieved 14 August 2023.
  18. ↑ Penttinen, P. M.; Kaasik-Aaslav, K.; Friaux, A.; Donachie, A.; Sudre, B.; Amato-Gauci, A. J.; Memish, Z. A.; Coulombier, D. (September 26, 2013). "Taking stock of the first 133 MERS coronavirus cases globally – Is the epidemic changing?". Eurosurveillance. 18 (39): 20596. doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES2013.18.39.20596 . PMID   24094061.
  19. ↑ Chan, EH; Brewer, TF; Madoff, LC; Pollack, MP; Sonricker, AL; Keller, M; Freifeld, CC; Blench, M; Mawudeku, A; Brownstein, JS (14 December 2010). "Global capacity for emerging infectious disease detection". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 107 (50): 21701–6. Bibcode:2010PNAS..10721701C. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1006219107 . PMC   3003006 . PMID   21115835.
  20. ↑ Keller, M; Blench, M; Tolentino, H; Freifeld, CC; Mandl, KD; Mawudeku, A; Eysenbach, G; Brownstein, JS (May 2009). "Use of unstructured event-based reports for global infectious disease surveillance". Emerging Infectious Diseases. 15 (5): 689–95. doi:10.3201/eid1505.081114. PMC   2687026 . PMID   19402953.
  21. ↑ "ProMED-mail and ONE HEALTH" (PDF). One Health Initiative. Archived (PDF) from the original on 16 August 2016. Retrieved 20 May 2016.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.