BioTerror Module in GIDEON
Several aspects of GIDEON are relevant to the field of Bioterror, including Diagnosis, Simulation, Syndromic Surveillance, Communications, Therapy, Vaccines and Microbiology.
The diagnosis module is based on a Bayesian matrix designed for decision support or simulation of all infectious diseases, in all countries. The user may input any combination of symptoms, signs, exposure data (country, dates of exposure, animals, foods, etc) and laboratory data. A specific sub-module has been developed for Bioterror events. The following figure depicts the data input screen for a scenario of hemorrhagic fever with onset four days following a suspected event.
Pressing the Diagnosis button generates the following differential diagnosis list:
This list is non-Bayesian (i.e., based on likelihood of symptom occurrence, without known incidence data). Options at this point allow the user to ask why any additional disease was NOT included in the differential diagnosis – or to generate a list of further discriminative clinical signs, laboratory tests, etc which would be useful in refining the differential diagnosis.
One option at this point allows the user to reexamine this scenario as a NON-bioterror event; ie, same clinical features affecting a group of patients in Canada. The following screen is generated:
The second module follows the status of all diseases in all countries, including the descriptive epidemiology of all bioterror diseases. Some representative screens for anthrax follow:
GIDEON currently contains over 2,500 images – skin lesions, roentgenograms, life cycle charts, photomicrographs – which can be copied to PowerPoint, word processor, etc. Note that the box at the lower right box allows for entry of additional disease-specific data in Hebrew: key contact numbers, specimen submission criteria and procedures, ongoing projects, etc. Since GIDEON may be maintained on an Intranet, all hospitals (clinics, Emergency Rooms, military facilities, laboratories) can be updated continually regarding all relevant diseases.
The program also contains 30,000 graphs – incidence, rates, death rates, etc. All may be combined in any fashion by the user:
Additional interactive modules present a comprehensive and up-to-date ‘encyclopedia’ of all vaccines, antimicrobial agents and pathogens … including those relevant to bioterrorism. As in the other modules, associated text boxes allow for addition of custom notes– specimen collection, available vaccines and their usage, phone numbers and more.
