Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Rome "Tor Vergata", 00133 Rome, Italy.
Department of Biomedicine and Prevention, University of Rome "Tor Vergata", 00133 Rome, Italy.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Mar 20;18(6):3216. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18063216.
Several technologies for rapid molecular identification of pathogens are currently available; jointly with monitoring tools (i.e., web-based surveillance tools, infectious diseases modelers, and epidemic intelligence methods), they represent important components for timely outbreak detection and identification of the involved pathogen. The application of these approaches is usually feasible and effective when performed by healthcare professionals with specific expertise and skills and when data and resources are easily accessible. Contrariwise, in the field situation where healthcare workers or first responders from heterogeneous competences can be asked to investigate an outbreak of unknown origin, a simple and suitable tool for rapid agent identification and appropriate outbreak management is highly needed. Most especially when time is limited, available data are incomplete, and accessible infrastructure and resources are inadequate. The use of a prompt, user-friendly, and accessible tool able to rapidly recognize an infectious disease outbreak and with high sensitivity and precision may be a game-changer to support emergency response and public health investigations.
This paper presents the work performed to implement and test an innovative tool for prompt identification of infectious diseases during outbreaks, called Infectious Diseases Seeker (IDS). IDS is a standalone software that runs on the most common operative systems. It has been built by integrating a database containing an interim set of 60 different disease causative agents and COVID-19 data and is able to work in an off-line mode without requiring a network connection.
IDS has been applied in a real and complex scenario in terms of concomitant infectious diseases (yellow fever, COVID-19, and Lassa fever), as can be in the second part of 2020 in Nigeria. The outcomes have allowed inferring that yellow fever (YF), and not Lassa fever, was affecting the area under investigation.
Our result suggests that a tool like IDS could be valuable for the quick and easy identification and discrimination of infectious disease outbreaks even when concurrent outbreaks occur, like for the case study of YF and COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria.
目前有几种快速鉴定病原体的分子技术，这些技术与监测工具（如基于网络的监测工具、传染病建模人员和疫情情报方法）一起，是及时发现疫情和鉴定病原体的重要组成部分。当具有特定专业知识和技能的医疗保健专业人员能够获得数据和资源时，这些方法的应用通常是可行且有效的。相反，在需要来自不同专业的医疗工作者或急救人员调查不明来源的疫情的现场情况下，非常需要一种简单、合适的快速鉴定病原体和进行适当疫情管理的工具。特别是当时间有限、可用数据不完整且基础设施和资源不足时，情况更是如此。使用一种快速、用户友好且易于访问的工具，能够快速识别传染病疫情，并且具有高灵敏度和高精度，可能会改变游戏规则，支持应急响应和公共卫生调查。
本文介绍了为实现和测试一种用于在疫情期间快速鉴定传染病的创新工具而开展的工作，该工具称为传染病搜索器（IDS）。IDS 是一个独立的软件，可在最常见的操作系统上运行。它是通过整合一个包含 60 种不同病原体和 COVID-19 数据的临时数据库构建而成，能够在无需网络连接的离线模式下运行。
IDS 已在一个涉及多种传染病（黄热病、COVID-19 和拉沙热）的真实而复杂的场景中得到应用，例如 2020 年下半年在尼日利亚的情况。结果表明，影响调查区域的是黄热病（YF），而不是拉沙热。
我们的结果表明，即使在同时发生疫情的情况下，像在尼日利亚 YF 和 COVID-19 大流行的案例研究中一样，像 IDS 这样的工具可以快速、轻松地识别和区分传染病疫情，这是非常有价值的。
