What is gphin

Copyright notice. This article has been cited by other articles in PMC. Abstract Background Globalization and the potential for rapid spread of emerging infectious diseases have heightened the need for ongoing surveillance and early detection.

Findings Every day the GPHIN analyzes over more than 20, online news reports over 30, sources in nine languages worldwide. Introduction As globalization increases, so does the rapid spread of communicable diseases and emerging public health events. Open in a separate window. Figure 1. Next steps Potential new data sources Internet, email, smart phones and social media have developed rapidly since the GPHIN was first developed.

Improving data analysis Not only might the GPHIN expand its data sources, it could also advance its data analysis capacities. Footnotes Conflict of interest: None. References 1. Big Data and management. Acad Manage J ; 57 2 —6. Ethical challenges of big data in public health. Feb; 11 2 :e Evaluation of a national pharmacy-based syndromic surveillance system.

Can Commun Dis Rep ; 41 9 — Use of unstructured event-based reports for global infectious disease surveillance. Emerg Infect Dis May; 15 5 — World Health Organization. Geneva: World Health Organization; Mykhalovskiy E, Weir L.

The Global Public Health Intelligence Network and early warning outbreak detection: a Canadian contribution to global public health. Can J Public Health Jan-Feb; 97 1 —4. Big data: the management revolution. Harv Bus Rev Oct; 90 10 —6.

Big data opportunities for global infectious disease surveillance. PLoS Med ; 10 4 :e New York: John Wiley and Sons; Heymann DL, Rodier G. Global surveillance, national surveillance, and SARS. Feb; 10 2 —5. Mawudeku A, Blench M. Davies SE. Nowhere to hide: informal disease surveillance networks tracing state behaviour.

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GPHIN's mission is to be an indispensable source of early warning for potential public health threats worldwide including chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear CBRN. The Global Public Health Intelligence Network GPHIN was set up as a global network of connected professionals working to rapidly detect, identify, assess, prevent and mitigate threats to human health. To facilitate its activities, an automated Web-based system, accessible to members of the network, was developed to help collect, collate and filter media reports from around the globe.

As a unique Heath Portfolio source for all-hazards intelligence, GPHIN supports risk assessments by Health Portfolio programs and other federal departments through early alerting. Second, past and present doctors and epidemiologists at Public Health have spoken out to The Globe, saying they were increasingly marginalized within the department, and struggled to get important messages up the chain of command because of senior officials who lacked a sufficient understanding of science.

A Dec. Health officials wanted to devise a system that could provide early warning of problems, so that Canada could better prepare, since even a few days or a week can mean a dramatic difference in containing outbreaks and preventing deaths. GPHIN began as an international news monitoring system in the early days of the internet, but eventually grew in sophistication. Bolstered after the SARS crisis, the unit expanded to employ highly specialized doctors and epidemiologists, working in multiple languages, whose job was to detect the earliest signals of outbreaks.

It became a combination of machine learning and human analysis. GPHIN developed algorithms to comb through news reports from around the world, while analysts scrutinized clues on social media, internet blogs, hospital data, financial reports, and by talking to medical sources on the ground.

For example, an unusual fluctuation in hog futures in one country might suggest a hidden outbreak of swine flu. GPHIN once successfully detected an undisclosed problem in China by scrutinizing the financial reports of a company that made antivirals, noticing surging sales in one particular region. The goal was to gather unofficial intelligence in cases where certain countries were inclined to hide outbreaks from the world.

Its job was not merely to detect an outbreak, but also to provide continuing surveillance so that Canada and other countries could act faster as a problem grew. Over the years, with no major threats materializing, the government grew weary of GPHIN, and sought to use its resources for other purposes. In an effort to curtail those operations, a department edict in late required that GPHIN analysts could no longer issue outbreak alerts without senior management approval.

This effectively shut down the warning system. The Globe obtained 10 years of Public Health records that showed how quickly this happened. With no management approvals, GPHIN issued its final warning on May 24, , about a strange deadly outbreak in Uganda, then went silent. Halting the alerts had a cascading effect.

Analysts were reassigned to domestic projects that the government considered more valuable, such as studying the impact of vaping in Canada. The earliest signs of trouble, which would have been detectable before the first reports of the novel coronavirus began emanating from China, were missed, analysts said.

Such unofficial intelligence would have indicated that the problem was more urgent than Beijing was letting on.