mcclatchydc.com — WASHINGTON — A Washington state biosurveillance firm raised the first warning about a possible outbreak of swine flu in Mexico more than two weeks before the World Health Organization offered its initial alert about a public health emergency of international concern.
May 1, 2009 View in Crawl 4
sciencedocMay 1, 2009
"On April 6, 18 days before the WHO issued its alert, Veratect reported on its Web site a strange outbreak of respiratory disease in La Gloria, Mexico, noting that local residents thought the outbreak was linked to contamination from pig breeding farms nearby.""Ten days after the warning was first issued, on April 16, Veratect reported the disease was possibly spreading in Mexico with an "unspecified number of atypical pneumonia cases" detected at a hospital in Oaxaca. Because of the heightened concern, an automated e-mail was sent to 10 people at the CDC to notify them the report was available."
juk3boxMay 1, 2009
People and organizations who can report on real troubles before the media or governments catch these troubles ought to be getting more recognition. According to this article, Veratect has developed a technology that catches these types of threats in real time. If people don't utilize this technology, what's the point of having it? We live in the 21st century now, it's time we start acting like it.