Software Program Detects Infectious Disease Outbreaks

A new software program could allow health authorities at the site of an infectious disease outbreak to quickly analyze data, speeding the detection of new cases and the implementation of effective interventions.

Researchers at the and the University of Washington (Seattle, USA) and RTI International (Research Triangle Park, NC, USA), an independent, nonprofit research organization, developed the program called TranStat from the models of infectious disease agent study (MIDAS), an international program supported by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA), to build computational models for studying disease spread.

TranStat can be used by public health officials to systematically enter and store infectious disease data. These data include details about the infected individuals, such as their sex, age, and onset of symptoms; their close contacts; and any interventions they might have received. The program also prompts field personnel to enter details about exposed but uninfected individuals. The computer program then uses this information to statistically determine the probability that people contracted the disease from each other, estimates in real time the average number of people an individual could infect, and calculates the rate at which that infection occurs in a particular setting. This information can help health officials develop and swiftly implement strategies that thwart further spread while they conduct additional studies.

"The faster we learn about emerging infectious diseases and their characteristics, the quicker we can contain and mitigate them,” said lead researcher Ira Longini, Ph.D., a biostatistician at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (Seattle, WA, USA) and the University of Washington. "TranStat will help us do this by standardizing data collection and analysis.”

The researchers have already used the underlying methods and software to determine that the H5N1 avian flu virus probably spread between members of an extended family in Indonesia in 2006. According to the results published in the September 2007 issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases, the transmission was not sustained.


Related Links:
University of Washington
RTI International
U.S. National Institutes of Health