Tracking Ebola with CDC's app

[Shiloh]

Source: http://gcn.com/articles/2014/08/11/ebola-virus-tracking-app.aspx

Tracking Ebola with CDC's app
By Stephanie Kanowitz
Aug 11, 2014

To help stem the ongoing outbreak of Ebola in West Africa, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are turning to the latest tools and technology. The Epi Info viral hemorrhagic fever (VHF) application is getting its first chance to speed contact tracing, the pinpointing, of everyone exposed to a person with a contagious disease and help with the collection and management of data on every case.

The VHF application enables users to set up databases of patient information, including names, gender, ages, locations, status -- such as dead or alive ? and Epi Case Classification, for suspected case, confirmed case or not a case. Marking people as ?sick and isolated? automatically converts them into cases, according to CodePlex, a project for hosting open-source software, and that reduces data entry errors and lessens data management for public health responders...

 

[Laidback Al]

Re: Tracking Ebola with CDC's app

The Epi Info viral hemorrhagic fever (VHF) application was first announced by the CDC in April 2014 (link). It appears to be a data entry form and associated queries for Epi Info for viral hemorrhagic fever, but has not yet been made publicly available by the CDC.

Epi Info is a free and publicly available software program for epidemiological analysis running only under Microsoft operating systems. According to the CDC,

"Epi Info?, a suite of lightweight software tools, delivers core ad-hoc epidemiologic functionality without the complexity or expense of large, enterprise applications. . . .

More information and download links for Epi Info are available from the CDC at: Epi Info?

 

[Sharky]

Re: Tracking Ebola with CDC's app

It's unfortunate that the app doesn't seem to include any networking capabilities, to allow multiple sites to share data...