Global Pandemic Initiative Coverage

Here's a quick roundup on some of the early coverage of the Global Pandemic Initiative that IBM announced today, with the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other major worldwide public health institutions.

IBM scientists have formed a steering committee with worldwide health organizations and universities to  explore the use of advanced analytical and computer technology as part of a global preparedness program to respond to potential infectious disease outbreaks around the world.

The Wall Street Journal: IBM is putting its advanced computer technology and know-how to use in the battle against potential pandemic flu. The company is expected to announce today that it plans to make some of its advanced software technologies available to public-health organizations and scientists around the world to help them more accurately predict and prepare for the potential spread of avian flu or other infectious diseases...IBM also said it plans to use supercomputers to model influenza viruses, in hopes of trying to predict mutations. Such work could help accelerate the development of vaccines, making it possible to develop and manufacture some before deadly strains become widespread....IBM's move could help generate sales for the technology it is using to build its pandemic model, such as software that allows hospitals and other organizations to share electronic health information and analyze it for trends.

(Declan Butler's Avian Flu Google Maps Project)

San Jose Mercury News:  As part of the effort, IBM said it will donate software designed to enable health authorities to share data, track the geographic spread of diseases and predict how the bird flu virus might mutate into a form that is deadlier to people.
Dr. Richard Waldhorn, an analyst at Pittsburgh University's Center for Biosecurity, who also is participating in the effort, agreed health authorities could use IBM's help..... IBM scientists in New York also are working with the La Jolla-based Scripps Research Institute to create computer technology that can predict how bird flu might mutate and become more lethal to people. IBM officials said those predictions could help in the development of effective bird-flu vaccines.

CNET:  IBM is working with leading health organizations to save lives by learning how to curb the spread of infectious disease. ... Scripps and IBM are building a joint facility in Florida where Scripps can utilize both the biological and geographical spread tracking systems.  Scripps already does some computational modeling, but "not at the scale they (IBM) were able to do and to do it with their order of magnitude using their supercomputers,"  a Scripps official said.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: The pandemic initiative will use software IBM intends to contribute to the open-source community that can help share information on disease outbreaks electronically. The software also can help predict how diseases will spread.

Palm Beach Post:  The IBM pandemic initiative grew out of a meeting among IBM, CDC and world health officials in November, said Joe Jasinski, IBM's program director for health care and life science research.... Jasinski said IBM has put a great deal of research into developing better supercomputers and software, but it's time for the next step.  "It's likely that major breakthroughs in the future will be in finding ways to use the new technologies — not just in making the new technologies," Jasinski said.

Gannett (Westchester Journal-News): Computer models could help predict the economic consequences as well as help leaders decide whether to take actions like closing schools, grounding planes or even shutting the borders, IBM's Jasinski said.  Because of modern transportation, decisions will need to be made rapidly. .... "Corporations like IBM, government health agencies and academic centers are working together to share information to get the world ready," Jasinski said. "In the event something does happen, we can respond to it more effectively than in the past. The whole point is to reduce the transmissibility of the disease and reduce the possible mortality of that."

IBM HealthNex Avian Flu Pandemic World Health Organization Center for Disease Control and Prevention Scripps Research Institute University of Pittsburgh Center for Biodiversity

Comments

[james hetfield]

This sounds cool.