Respiratory transmitted pathogens (flu viruses, coronaviruses), climate-sensitive infectious diseases, antimicrobial resistance in animals, disease X and pandemic preparedness in Europe: these are some of the topics that will be covered on the first day of the final scientific conference of the MOOD project. Titled “Emerging infectious diseases in Europe: Challenges and opportunities in data sharing and response modeling for better health”this conference will take place over two days in Italy.
The scientific advances of the project will be presented on the second day around four sessions:
- Model diseases studied to model and map risks (e.g. avian influenza, West Nile virus and other emerging mosquito-borne viruses, and tick-borne encephalitis in Europe);
- Lessons learned from Disease different national public health agencies at different stages of the pandemic);
- Data preparation and innovative tools to improve epidemic monitoring in Europe (for example, the UTOPIA and MUST-AI tools), including the provision of environmental and climate data to model diseases;
- Improving epidemic intelligence practices in health agencies in Europe (for example, how to co-design health risk assessment tools with potential end users).
Among the keynote speakers, members of the MOOD project consortium, will speak:
- Philippe Lemey (KU Leuven, Belgium) on the phylodynamics of respiratory viruses in Europe;
- Flavia Riccardo (ISS, Italy) on arbovirus surveillance in Italy;
- Thomas van Boeckel (University of Zurich, Switzerland) on antimicrobial resistance in Europe;
- Thierry Lefrançois (CIRAD, France) on the science-decision interface for better anticipation and preparation for major health risks;
- Guy Hendrickx (Avia-GIS, Belgium) on the MOOD platform and its sustainable deployment.
“The MOOD project successfully achieved its objectives by providing data mining and analysis techniques to use Big Data from multiple sources to improve the detection, surveillance and assessment of emerging infectious diseases important for Europe. The project resulted in 140 scientific publications and more than 60 datasets available via OpenAIRE – Open Access Infrastructure for Research in Europe. The ultimate result of the project is the MOOD platform. By bringing together health agency users and researchers, we were able to improve the effectiveness of surveillance practices. We are now looking to the future by setting up and leading a large network of users in Europe and beyond, ensuring the sustainability and evolution of the MOOD platform through an international association for the purpose non-profit, and why not through a MOOD 2 project », rejoices Elena Arsevska, veterinary epidemiologist at CIRAD and project coordinator.
Many other events took place during the MOOD project, one of the most important being the final user workshop, held on 23-24 October in Antwerp, Belgium, where specialists diseases, epidemiologists and modelers were trained in the use of the MOOD platform and were able to benefit from feedback from other users.
With its final scientific conference, the MOOD project brings to an end five years of hard work by more than 20 partners, aiming to improve detection systems for emerging diseases across Europe. The MOOD project contributed to a better understanding of the dynamics of diseases, to the modeling of their risk of appearance, to the development of surveillance and control strategies for emerging infectious diseases in Europe with the aim of improving their management .
The MOOD platform for early detection, assessment and monitoring
In a context of global change and “Big Data”, the MOOD platform focuses on the development of services and tools in a single platform for the early detection, assessment and monitoring of the emergence of infectious diseases. The platform will complement the tools already used by national public and animal health agencies for risk assessment, monitoring and mitigation, paying particular attention to access and visualization of a range of environmental data , climatic and epidemiological useful for modeling and risk assessment, as well as visualizing risk maps for tick-borne encephalitis (TBE), highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), antimicrobial resistance (AMR), West Nile virus in Europe, as well as a range of other tools and codes for modeling and assessing risks.
Discover the platform: https://app.mood-h2020.eu/
This project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under funding agreement No 874850 – MOOD.
