title: Distributed and Mobile Collaboration for Real Time Epidemiological Surveillance during Forces Deployments.
abstract: This paper presents a pilot project of a real time syndromic surveillance system in French armed forces for early warning of biological attack by mass destruction weapons. For simulating the situation of a theatre of operations and its organisation, an electronic syndromic surveillance system covering all branches of service in French Guiana (about 3,000 persons) has been deployed and connected to a surveillance centre in France. This system has been design taking in account a collaborative view of epidemiological surveillance and the mobility of forces in extreme conditions. Several kinds of hardware, from rugged personal digital assistant to desktop computer, and several telecommunication links, from PSTN to satellite data links, are used. This system allows a quick report of cases, which are georeferenced. In the first results, some problems associated with the human and the technical aspects have been reported, in association with some immediate advantages.
authors.affiliation: Département d'Epidémiologie et de Santé Publique, IMTSSA, Marseille Armées, France. herve.chaudet@medecine.univ-mrs.fr
authors.forename: Hervé
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Chaudet
authors.forename: Jean-Baptiste
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Meynard
authors.forename: Gaëtan
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Texier
authors.forename: Olivier
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Tournebize
authors.forename: Liliane
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Pellegrin
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Queyriaux
authors.forename: Jean-Paul
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Boutin
mesh_terms: D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D005602:France / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D008889:Military Personnel; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011159:Population Surveillance