The Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp (ITM) is involved in the international MOOD project, which aims to detect, monitor and analyse the arrival of new diseases.
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This project therefore aims to harmonise and improve global health monitoring in order to better combat emerging diseases.
The global spread of dangerous diseases is accelerating. Why? There are many causes, including climate change, globalisation and the movement of people, animals and goods that it generates, population growth and increased urbanisation.
Since January, as part of this project, the Outbreak Research Team (ORT) at ITM has been working with major partners such as the WHO, the FAO, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, and universities in 25 countries to analyse what is known in the jargon as "Big data".
This involves analysing a huge and complex amount of often unstructured data. They use official sources relayed by e-health agencies, as well as more informal sources collected from forums, press articles and social networks. "How can we pick up signals from science, media and even social media?" asked Van Bortel, researcher at the ITM. By using computer algorithms and the most advanced text mining and data analysis techniques, for example, researchers are trying to detect signals and trends in these diseases as early as possible.
Detecting new diseases and the spread of existing ones at an early stage is crucial for containing them before they become epidemics.
