In the South East Asia Region (SEAR), infectious disease continues to be a leading cause of death. SEAR countries, like Vietnam, are also at risk for outbreaks of emerging diseases due to high population density, proximity to animals and deforestation. Given Vietnam’s location in SEAR and its recurrent outbreaks of zoonotic diseases— timely surveillance in Vietnam is critical to global public health. Online news sources have been recognized as potential sources for early detection of emerging disease outbreaks, as was the case with SARS. HealthMap, an innovative disease surveillance system developed at Boston Children’s Hospital, leverages the expediency of online news media by using text-mining technology to monitor and map global disease outbreaks reported by news sources.
Objective
To present the development of a surveillance system utilizing online Vietnamese language media sources to detect disease events in Vietnam and the South East Asian Region.