An Irish-led pandemic response project has released a new data platform to help the EU respond rapidly to future pandemics.

Pandem-2 is a Horizon 2020 EU-funded project that aims to create a “whole of EU approach” so countries respond more effectively to future pandemics. The consortium believes a non-unified approach showed vulnerabilities that were highlighted from the Covid-19 pandemic

Led by NUI Galway, the consortium consists of 19 partner organisations from across the EU, including Epiconcept in France and Clarisoft in Romania.

The goal of the new platform, Pandem-Source, is to collect real-time data relevant to pandemics from international sources, laboratories, social media and volunteer organisations.

“We hope that this tool will support the work of pandemic managers across Europe by connecting them to real-time information from traditional and non-traditional sources,” Epiconcept head of data science Francisco Orchard said.

“The tool means officials involved in the response to public health emergencies will have case numbers, hospitalisations, deaths, vaccination uptake to name a few at their fingertips,” Orchard added.

Pandem-2 said the platform is designed to meet the needs of public health agencies, governments and international organisations such as the World Health Organisation.

The project is open-source and available to the public, to allow users to analyse and compare different sources of pandemic-related data. In time, Pandem-Source will feed into the upcoming Pandem-2 Dashboard, where its situational awareness components will be developed through visual analytics.

“I would like to acknowledge all partners involved in achieving this major milestone in the Pandem-2 project,” Pandem-2 coordinator from NUIG Prof Máire Connolly said. “Covid-19 has affected every corner of society and had devastating health, economic and social impacts on countries worldwide.

“In the event of a future pandemic, we hope that the Pandem-Source tool will play a role in the conversations that public health experts and policymakers are having. Pandem-Source will provide them with the comprehensive, accurate, up-to-the-minute data that they will need to make better decisions,” Connolly added.

NUIG has several scientists from the Data Science Institute and the Insight Centre for Data Analytics involved in the Pandem-2 project. These researchers have central roles in developing a suite of tools for readiness assessment for pandemic planning and for simulating pandemic outbreaks.

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