OUTBREAK: a user-friendly georeferencing online tool for disease surveillance

The current COVID-19 pandemic has already claimed more than 3.7 million victims and it will cause more deaths in the coming months. Tools that track the number and locations of cases are critical for surveillance and help in making policy decisions for controlling the outbreak. However, the current surveillance web-based dashboards run on proprietary platforms, which are often expensive and require specific computational knowledge. We developed a user-friendly web tool, named OUTBREAK, that facilitates epidemic surveillance by showing in an animated graph the timeline and geolocations of cases of an outbreak. It permits even non-specialist users to input data most conveniently and track outbreaks in real-time. We applied our tool to visualize the SARS 2003, MERS, and COVID19 epidemics, and provided them as examples on the website. Through the zoom feature, it is also possible to visualize cases at city and even neighborhood levels. We made the tool freely available at https://outbreak.sysbio.tools/. OUTBREAK has the potential to guide and help health authorities to intervene and minimize the effects of outbreaks.

Tratamiento neuroquirúrgico del hematoma extradural en el Hospital Clínico Regional de Antofagasta / Neurosurgical treatment of extradural hematoma in the Regional Hospital Clinic of Antofagasta, Chile

An analysis was made on processes of emergency attention, diagnosis, and neurosurgical treatment of patients with encephalocranial trauma complicated by extradural hematoma of patients entering the Neurosurgical and Neurological Service of the Regional Hospital Clinic of Antofagasta between 1999 and 2002. The causes of this injury included falls (four cases), traffic accidents (four cases) and head impacts (four cases). Of 12 patients submitted to surgery, all were male with ages between 15 and 47 years of age. Most of the injuries were frontal or temporal. Among the signs and symptoms the most frequent was impaired consciousness. A total of 83 percent of the patients required attention outside of normal working hours, and thus the wait between emergency treatment and neurosurgery was 7.34 hours. Computed axial tomography (CAT) was indicated as the diagnostic method of choice for this injury. There were no sequelae in 75 percent of the cases, while anosmia (17 percent) was the most relevant sequela. Mortality occurred in only case, and evolutional complications presented in three cases of the group studied. Recommendations are made for the optimization of the process of attention to these patients in a regional assistence network.

Se analizan los procesos de atención de urgencia, diagnóstico y tratamiento neuroquirúrgico de pacientes portadores de un traumatismo encefalocraneano complicado por un hematoma extradural que ingresaron al Servicio de Neurocirugía y Neurología del Hospital Clínico Regional de Antofagasta entre 1999 y 2002. Las causas del TEC fueron caídas (4 casos), accidente del tránsito (4 casos) e impacto craneano (4 casos). De 12 pacientes sometidos a cirugía, todos eran del sexo masculino, con edades entre 15 y 47 años. La mayoría de los HED fueron de localización frontal o temporal. Entre los signos y síntomas, el de mayor frecuencia fue el compromiso de conciencia. En el 83 por ciento de los pacientes la atención se realizó en horario no hábil, en tanto que el tiempo promedio de espera entre la hora de atención de urgencia y la intervención neuroquirúrgica fue de 7,34 horas. Se señala la tomografía axial computarizada (TAC) como el procedimiento diagnóstico de elección en el HED. El 75 por ciento de los casos no presentó secuelas, mientras que la anosmia (17 por ciento) fue la secuela más relevante. La mortalidad fue de un sólo caso y complicaciones evolutivas se observaron en 3 de los casos de esta serie. Se hacen recomendaciones a fin de optimizar el proceso de atención de este tipo de pacientes a nivel de la red asistencial regional.