PANDEM-Source, a tool to collect or generate surveillance indicators for pandemic management: A use case with COVID-19 data

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Introduction PANDEM-Source (PS) is a tool to collect and integrate openly available public health related data from heterogeneous data sources to support infectious diseases surveillance for pandemic management. The tool may be used also for pandemic preparedness by collecting or generating surveillance data for training purposes. It was developed as part of the EU funded Horizon 2020 PANDEM-2 project during the COVID-19 pandemic as result of a close collaboration in a consortium of nineteen partners including six European public health agencies, one hospital, and three first responders organisations. Methods A requirement gathering process with EU pandemic managers in the consortium was performed with the objective of identifying and prioritising a list of variables and indicators useful for surveillance and pandemic management. Using COVID-19 pandemic as a use case, we developed PS, a tool to map, collect, and integrate data used for surveillance from different data sources with the purpose of feeding all necessary data to be displayed in the PANDEM-2 dashboard. Results PS routinely monitors, collects, and standardises data from from open or restricted heterogeneous data sources (users can upload their own data). It supports traditional surveillance indicators and health resources reported by national and international agencies, and non-traditional surveillance indicators such as those captured in social and mass media, participatory surveillance and sero-prevalence studies. The tool can also calculate indicators and be used to produce data for training purposes by generating synthetic data from a minimal set of indicators to simulate pandemicscenarios. PS is currently set up for COVID-19 surveillance at European level but can be adapted to other diseases or threats and regions. Conclusion PS design provides flexibility to collect heterogeneous data from open data sources or to upload end users' own data and customise surveillance indicators. These features are supplemented by the ability to generate realistic epidemiological synthetic datasets that can be used for training purposes. All these features make PS a unique and valuable tool for pandemic management. With the lessons learnt during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to keep building capacity to monitor potential threats and develop tools that can facilitate training all the necessary aspects to manage future pandemics. The open source availability of PS1 and the supporting documentation to facilitate easy adaptation to future threats or different training scenarios may represent a cost efficient impact tool for pandemic management.

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