1. An Information System to Collect and Analyze Data From Educational Units During Epidemy Spread Periods.
- Author
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Garofalakis, John, Koskeris, Andreas, Boufardea, Evangelia, Michail, Theofanis, and Oikonomou, Flora
- Abstract
The 2009 flu pandemic was a global outbreak of a new strain of H1N1 influenza virus, often referred to as "swine flu", which infected thousands of people. In order to improve Public Service efficiency and effectiveness for the virus's prevention, governments all over the world started collecting data and recording laboratory-confirmed cases of the flu. Due to the proliferation of the Internet and the World Wide Web applications and the increasing interaction of people with eGovernment systems, the recorded flu occurrences were available to scientists around the world in order to help them draw meaningful conclusions regarding the H1N1 spread. In Greece apart from the other measures which were taken, special interest was given to the flu high risk groups, such as young children. The presented project concerns the development and the use of a web based tool to collect and analyze students' absences on a daily basis from the educational units in Greece. Aim of this effort was to assist the epidemiology monitoring of H1N1 epidemic evolution in Greece, in the whole country and per Region, leading - in comparative analysis with other factors collected from other sources - to the extraction of important conclusions for taking precautionary measures against the flu (e.g. temporarily school closures). Such a survey system to collect and analyze the daily students' absences from Greek schools is very useful due to the fact that it provides a precise view concerning the H1N1 spread in "real time". The whole system has been integrated to the central Resources Management System of the Greek Ministry of Education and it operated utilizing the backbone of Greek School Network. The daily data entry was carried out in a secure hierarchical way (data entry from schools, and data monitoring from administrative offices). Several statistics were presented, providing capability for comparative analysis results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2011