346 INFECTIOUS DISEASES AND 7,316 OUTBREAKS INCLUDED IN NEW VERSION OF GIDEON ONLINE

– Features the most current information and decision support tools to assist medical professionals in diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases and bioterrorism agents–

LOS ANGELES, Calif., March 19, 2008 – GIDEON Informatics (www.gideononline.com) today announced a new version of its Web-based solution, with data on 346 infectious diseases, 7,316 outbreaks, 219 signs and symptoms and 80,000 medical notes. Providing comprehensive and accurate information on infectious diseases, GIDEON helps medical professionals worldwide improve the diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases.
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GIDEON will have a technology showcase at the 2008 Medical Library Association meeting in Chicago, IL on May 18. Dr. Steve Berger will be presenting. GIDEON demonstrations will also take place at the EBSCO booth.

Medical librarians, please mark your calendars:
Technology Showcase: GIDEON (aka How to compete with Dr. House)
Date: Sun, May 18, 2008
Time: 12:00 PM – 12:30 PM
Location: Hyatt Regency Chicago, Exhibit Hall (Riverside Center)

And if you haven’t yet, book your hotel now. Rooms are going quickly.

As reported in ProMED:
Notwithstanding the recent episode in Uganda [see: ProMED-mail post Hepatitis E virus - Uganda 20080304.0894], outbreaks of hepatitis E in Sub-Saharan Africa are rarely reported. The following summary was abstracted from GIDEON.

Botswana
1985 – An outbreak (245 cases) in Maun was ascribed to possible water contamination.

Central African Republic
2002 – An outbreak (48 confirmed cases) in Bangui may have been caused by contaminated drinking water.
2004 – An outbreak (10 cases) in Bangui was caused by contaminated water sold by a street vendor.

Chad
2004 – An outbreak (1442 cases, 46 fatal) was reported in Goz Amer and Goz Beida – Sudanese refugee camps.
2005 – An outbreak (50 or more fatal cases) was reported in the area of Goz Beida (eastern Chad).
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As of 2008, mankind is confronted by 346 generic infectious diseases, distributed in a seemingly haphazard fashion across 220 countries. An average of three new diseases are described every two years – and a new infecting organism is published every week ! Over 1,600 human pathogens have been reported, each with a specific set of phenotypic, genomic and susceptibility characteristics which must be confronted by diagnostic laboratories and clinicians. The pathogens are in turn confronted by 276 generic anti-infective agents and 67 vaccines – marketed under 10,493 proprietary names.

Table 1, below, lists the major infectious diseases and pathogens which have been reported since 1972. Many conditions on this list (ie, Lyme disease, Legionellosis, Cyclosporiasis) are in fact old diseases which were only “discovered” when technology permitted us to recognize their presence. This is also true of many “new” pathogens, which could only be discovered because of the advent of molecular biology and other sophisticated laboratory techniques.
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