Dr. Stephen Toovey wrote a nice review of GIDEON in the Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease journal. He says “…there is no doubt that travel medicine practitioners, infectious disease physicians and microbiologists in need of a serious database will have to consider Gideon”

Following up on The Ten Worst Travel-Related Diseases post, Terry Ward at Forbes Travel interviewed Dr. Steve Berger for her article, 8 most common travel illnesses. Steve spoke about diarrhea:

“It’s very hard to avoid. About 40 percent of people will get diarrhea when traveling in an undeveloped country, which covers most of the world,” says Dr. Stephen Berger, founder and medical advisor for GIDEON, an online infectious diseases database. Exposure to different strains of the E. coli bacteria, present in all of our bodies, says Berger, is what usually causes diarrhea in travelers, and it can happen in any country.

… referenced chikungunya:

“And with the chikungunya outbreak in Italy in 2007, that’s not tropical any more either,” says Dr. Berger, referring to another mosquito-borne illness that manifests with terrible joint pain, muscle pain, a fever, and often a rash. An outbreak in Ravenna, Italy, in 2007 showed the disease was spreading beyond the tropical realm. “The mosquitoes that cause these things turn out to be mosquitoes that also invade non-tropical areas,” says Berger, “Chikungunya is extremely common in the Indian Ocean region, and it’s becoming more and more common to see it in travelers in the U.S. and Europe, too.”

and more.

Read both the article and the slide show.

Los Angeles, Calif. (PRWEB) May 5, 2009 — The first recorded outbreak of influenza occurred in 1580, according to GIDEON (www.gideononline.com), the online infectious disease database used by medical professionals worldwide. As of 2003, an additional 31 pandemics had been documented, including 21 million deaths estimated from an H1N1 pandemic during 1918 to 1919. From 1958 to 2005, 50 cases of swine influenza virus infection (mostly H1N1) were reported in humans (http://gideononline.com/swineflu).

GIDEON reports that up until 2006, a total of 46 cases of human infection by swine influenza (more…)

Today, in the Sacramento Bee, an article about tainted pistachios quoted GIDEON and added a graph:

Reported cases of salmonella in the United States rose in the late 1980s and early 1990s but have gone down since, according to Gideon Informatics Inc., a firm that tracks infectious disease trends. Lately salmonella cases have been holding steady at around 15 to 16 per 100,000 Americans annually, the company’s data shows.

Outbreaks of infectious diseases from nuts are rare. GIDEON, a database which follows the status of all infectious diseases in all countries, has recorded sixteen such episodes. GIDEON currently contains details concerning 777 outbreaks of salmonellosis – of which nuts were implicated in only 1.2%.

Food-related outbreaks associated with nuts, in chronological order:

• 1986 – An outbreak (9 cases, 2 fatal) of botulism in Taiwan was caused by contaminated commercially preserved peanuts.
• 1991 – An outbreak (4 cases) of cholera in Maryland was associated with commercial frozen fresh coconut milk imported from Thailand.
• 1992 – An outbreak of shigellosis in Thailand was associated with consumption of a coconut milk dessert.
• (more…)

U.S. Centers for Disease Control, Kuwait Medical Association, Sarawak Medical and Maine Medical Center Are Among the Many Global Health Organizations that Selected GIDEON Online in 2008.

Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) March 25, 2009 — GIDEON (www.gideononline.com) today announced that it has added more than 20 global health organizations to its roster of clients in 2008, including the United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Kuwait Medical Association, University of Malaysia Sarawak Medical Faculty, and Maine Medical Center. From public health organizations to hospitals to universities, GIDEON helps medical professionals worldwide improve the diagnosis and treatment of infectious disease by providing comprehensive and accurate information.

(more…)

Despite the recent fatal case of avian flu in Beijing, overall avian flu cases in humans worldwide have decreased 55%, from 88 to 40, from 2007 to 2008, according to GIDEON Online (www.gideononline.com), the largest online database of infectious disease information for medical professionals. Human deaths from avian flu worldwide declined from 59 to 30 (49%), from 2007 to 2008.

(more…)

Steve Stallman recently interviewed Uri Blackman, GIDEON’s CEO, in SCribe magazine, which was mentioned in the Technology Council of Southern California blog. The interview provides some background on the company and the benefit of GIDEON to its users:

What is the main value proposition you offer?
Originally, we focused on compiling the entire world’s data for Infectious Diseases in one easy to use location combined with medical decision support. Now we have taken this to the next level by adding other medical domains on our platform. We help identify the diseases, their global footprints, and provide specific information on treatments. Medical professionals now have one clear source to get the most up to date information, which can change by the minute. This often makes them aware of things they never thought of and helps them make the best decision possible.

LOS ANGELES, CA–(June 12, 2008) – More than one million cases of foodborne salmonella are reported each year, accounting for 9.7 percent of all foodborne illnesses and 30.6 percent of all food-related deaths, according to GIDEON Online, an online database of infectious disease information for medical professionals.

Specifically, foodborne salmonella resulted in 15,600 hospitalizations and 550 deaths, over the last year.

For more information on salmonella, Dr. Stephen Berger, MD, infectious disease expert, is available for interviews. Dr. Berger, cofounder and Medical Advisor for GIDEON, has published more than 180 articles and books, including “Introduction to Infectious Diseases” and “The Healthy Tourist.” He is currently affiliated with the Tel Aviv Medical Center as Director of both Geographic Medicine and of Clinical Microbiology.

For more media information, contact:
Lisa Hendrickson
LCH Communications
516-643-1642
lisa@lchcommunications.com

Dr. Steve Berger, GIDEON’s Chief Medical Advisor, is quoted in the article “Is Your Keyboard Making You Sick?” in the US News and World Report:

“The bottom line is it’s actually nothing to worry about,” says Steve Berger, director of microbiology and tropical medicine at the Tel Aviv Medical Center. “We’re living in a sea of bacteria. The germs that you’re dealing with are normal bacteria, and nobody’s going to catch anthrax or Ebola or anything from a keyboard.”

In an article about Viropharma’s Camvia’s treatment paradigm, there is a quote from Steve, GIDEON’s Chief Medical Advisor, who used GIDEON to provide information on warnings for Ganciclovir:

Dr Stephen Berger, Director of Geographic Medicine and of Clinical Microbiology at Tel Aviv Medical Center, said the current standard of care, oral ganciclovir is quite toxic, and has 41 toxicities and 14 drug to drug interactions. In addition to myelosuppression, other side-effects include hair-loss and anemia.