ESA Joins the Fight for Health and Safety

The European Space Agency is throwing its full support behind an initiative spearheaded by the Portuguese National Health Institute for the development of a Health Early-Warning System (HEWS). HEWS will enable the timely detection and tracking of emerging threats to public health and safety via satellite.

Originally the brainchild of the Portuguese National Health Institute (INSA), HEWS promises to be a boon not only for Europe but also for the world. The system is being developed as an integrated management platform devised to support epidemiologic surveillance, public health monitoring, crisis management and civil protection programmes.

Giorgio Parentela, ESA Telemedicine Task Force Manager, spoke at length about the importance of HEWS: "At the ministry level, interest was shown in the use of (the) HEWS system, not only for endemic pathologies that periodically plague the country, for example cholera, but also for health programmes that are part of the basic health interventions in African countries," he said. These are "usually sponsored by the World Health Organisation (WHO), such as the vaccination programme, to which HEWS could be easily adapted."

HEWS involves a consortium of Portuguese and Italian companies, notably Tekever (Portugal) and Ridgeback (Italy), along with ESA and INSA. Currently, INSA is responsible for its scientific and management aspects.

Recently, HEWS was put to the test in the south-eastern African country of Angola, a former colony of Portugal. Local health institutions and higher-level Angolan institutions including the Ministry of Health collaborated on the test, which was a simulation of a surge of the Marburg virus. This scenario followed on from one conducted early last year in Lisbon, Portugal.

In both these scenarios, the HEWS system demonstrated the added value of satellite communications in situations in which there are threats to public health. Both scenarios offered a demonstration of the developed modular HEWS system that can add institutions, customise data input, implement early warning alert systems and response to health situations with automated distribution of the respective alert information, and guarantee all required security levels of information.

The Angola test case was conducted in the small town of Caxito, the capital of the Bengo Province in north-western Angola with a population of approximately 719 people. Importantly, the town has no reliable means of communication. Communication via satellite is currently the only fully viable solution, not only for emergency situations but also for regular health, epidemiological and administrative reporting.

Currently, team members are exploring the possibilities of making the HEWS service suitable for the needs of the population with the Angolan authorities. The scenario conducted in Lisbon involved the staging of a bio-terrorist attack at an international conference. During the staged attack, Bacillus anthracis spores (or anthrax) were released, causing panic among the population, traffic jams and the saturation of the mobile telephone network.

Through the course of events it was determined that HEWS played a crucial role in two areas: the release of a powder in a public square and the isolation and storming of a building. HEWS would be able to maximise the coordination of information flow between the several institutions involved, overcome communication difficulties and increase the efficiency of the response effort.

"The major points of relevance were considered to be the fact that the HEWS system is a reliable and versatile communication system and (that it) has the potential to act as a manager and distributor of information between the institutions," said Mr Parentela.

For further information, please visit:
http://www.hews-project.com/

Copyright ©European Communities, 2009
Neither the Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, nor any person acting on its behalf, is responsible for the use, which might be made of the attached information. The attached information is drawn from the Community R&D Information Service (CORDIS). The CORDIS services are carried on the CORDIS Host in Luxembourg - http://cordis.europa.eu. Access to CORDIS is currently available free-of-charge.

Most Popular Now

MEDICA 2024 + COMPAMED 2024: Adapted Hal…

11 - 14 November 2024, Düsseldorf, Germany. The final preparations for MEDICA 2024 and COMPAMED 2024 in Düsseldorf have begun. A total of more than 5,500 exhibitors from approximately 70 countries...

AI does Not Necessarily Lead to more Eff…

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in hospitals and patient care is steadily increasing. Especially in specialist areas with a high proportion of imaging, such as radiology, AI has long...

Commission Joins Forces with Venture Cap…

The Commission has launched a Trusted Investors Network bringing together a group of investors ready to co-invest in innovative deep-tech companies in Europe together with the EU. The Union's investment...

Why the NHS is Seeking to Make Media Ser…

Opinion Article by Dean Moody, Healthcare Services Director, Airwave Healthcare. Tim Kelsey and Martha Lane Fox called for WiFi to be made available free of charge throughout the NHS back in...

An AI-Powered Pipeline for Personalized …

Ludwig Cancer Research scientists have developed a full, start-to-finish computational pipeline that integrates multiple molecular and genetic analyses of tumors and the specific molecular targets of T cells and harnesses...

Philips and Medtronic Advocacy Partnersh…

Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA), a global leader in health technology, and Medtronic Neurovascular, a leading innovator in neurovascular therapies, today announced a strategic advocacy partnership. Delivering timely stroke...

Wearable Cameras Allow AI to Detect Medi…

A team of researchers says it has developed the first wearable camera system that, with the help of artificial intelligence (AI), detects potential errors in medication delivery. In a test whose...

AI could Transform How Hospitals Produce…

A pilot study led by researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine found that advanced artificial intelligence (AI) could potentially lead to easier, faster and more efficient...

New AI Tool Predicts Protein-Protein Int…

Scientists from Cleveland Clinic and Cornell University have designed a publicly-available software and web database to break down barriers to identifying key protein-protein interactions to treat with medication. The computational tool...

AI for Real-Rime, Patient-Focused Insigh…

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but still... they both have a lot of work to do to catch up to BiomedGPT. Covered recently in the prestigious journal Nature...

Start-Ups will Once Again Have a Starrin…

11 - 14 November 2024, Düsseldorf, Germany. The finalists in the 16th Healthcare Innovation World Cup and the 13th MEDICA START-UP COMPETITION have advanced from around 550 candidates based in 62...

G-Cloud 14 Makes it Easier for NHS to Bu…

NHS organisations will be able to save valuable time and resource in the procurement of technologies that can make a significant difference to patient experience, in the latest iteration of...