One company may have come up with just such a system.

Looking at Thailand as one of the countries where a bird flu epidemic may develop, Virginia-based Daedalus Health Information Systems has stepped in with an idea that it believes will help national health authorities and related bodies make a timely response to a potential disaster.

"Outbreaks have no frontiers. When there are cases in one country, it doesn't stop just at the border. Rapid detection, the isolation of possible viruses, and immediate notification are critical," said Buntoon Sucharitwongsanont, president of Daedalus Health Information Systems' Asia and Oceania division.

Called GeoFlu, the software is an automated telephone-based tracking and reporting system. It provides a picture of the world's health profile, specifically with regard to avian flu.

The software collects information about outbreaks of the disease around the world and provides almost instantaneous notification to participants and subscribers.

Daedalus developed GeoFlu based on the architecture of its proposed US public-sector project National 922, developed to provide situational awareness on matters of concern involving the national health profile, including incidents of bio-terrorism.

The concept behind the system is that it would receive information fed in from points where a potential pandemic could arise. The system located at the centre would then process, analyse, track, report and forewarn related bodies for action in real time.

To make the system work even more effectively and accurately, ideally it is necessary to have small centres working as a network to feed information to the system at the national warning centre.

Arcangelo Arduini, vice president for business development at the company's Asia and Oceania division, said the GeoFlu system could be divided into two parts.

Created to work as a telephone-based system, the software receives information from the public and official health units via mobile phone, fixed lines or Internet connections.

Once the information comes in, it then generates a report and immediately notifies health authorities via SMS, voice-mail or e-mail for tracing purposes in real time.

The latter part is the electronic enterprise suite that provides tracking of the incident. Once the report is received, it verifies the situation as well as the action taken or to be taken.

"With this, authorities are able to set up a time frame to control the disease. If the software says the outbreak probably cannot be contained in the first 48 hours, the level of action to deal with the situation would be lifted by several degrees to eliminate any chance of the outbreak spreading," Arcangelo said.

He added that GeoFlu is a software matrix created by physicians and experts in the telecommunications industry so that it can analyse and identify various types of illness.

In this way it is able to analyse and identify other potential diseases as well, not just bird flu.

With the aim of offering the system to the Thai government, Daedalus has signed a memorandum of understanding with Thai Gateway, an affiliate of Loxley Public Company Limited, to develop Geoflu programmes and projects. Thai Gateway, apart from working as a system integrator for the project, will also work as a marketing arm to propose the system to health-related government agencies.

Somboon Sooksatra, managing director of Thai Gateway Co, said that to make the system work more comprehensively, it has co-operated with Space Imaging South East Asia Co to provide real-time pinpoint pictures of areas where there is a spread of avian flu.

Space Imaging South East Asia Co is a provider of high-resolution satellite imagery using its Ikonos satellite system.

"With the images it is possible to exactly pinpoint any area with an outbreak, which is useful for a rescue team. The satellite can capture and produce images as close as one metre," Somboon said. The two companies are encouraging Thailand to be the first to try GeoFlu before expanding to neighbouring countries. They hope Thailand will act as headquarters for the system to provide the service to other countries likely to be affected such as Malaysia and Indonesia.

Suchalee Pongprasert

The Nation

suchalee@nationgroup.com