Website helps track emerging zoonotic diseases

Davis, Calif.

-- A new international tool has been unleashed to help track emerging zoonotic diseases.

PREDICT is a project of the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Emerging Pandemics Threats program, which focuses on building early warning systems for emerging global diseases.

The University of California, Davis (UC-Davis) helped implement PREDICT, along with the Wildlife Conservation Society, Harvard Medical School, Children’s Hospital Boston, EcoHealth and others.

PREDICT utilizes a SMART surveillance method (Strategic, Measurable, Adaptive, Responsive, and Targeted) designed to detect potentially pandemic diseases early and at their source. The system delivers real-time data from a number of sources for an overall view of infectious diseases worldwide. PREDICT uses the HealthMap platform’s automated process to monitor more than 50,000 sources on the Internet, including officials reports from agencies like the World Health Organization.

“HealthMap.org helps us monitor outbreaks wherever they occur so that we can target more intensive surveillance to detect emerging pathogens before they spread widely among people and animals, giving us the best chance to prevent new pandemics,” said Jonna Mazet, Director of the PREDICT project and UC Davis’ One Health Institute in the School of Veterinary Medicine.

See PREDICT at work here.