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| PRO/MBDS is a special service of ProMED-mail for the Mekong Basin Disease Surveillance (MBDS) group of countries. These countries include The Kingdom of Cambodia, Yunnan province of People's Republic of China, Lao PDR, The Union of Myanmar, The Socialist Republic of Vietnam, and the Kingdom of Thailand. The MBDS initiative was established with the support of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Rockefeller Foundation. It has subsequently received support from other groups such as the Global Health and Security Initiative of the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the RAND Corporation. PRO/MBDS is a result of a collaboration between the International Society for Infectious Diseases' Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases (ProMED-mail) and the Mekong Basin Disease Surveillance Group initiated with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation.
ProMED-mail is an Internet-based reporting system dedicated to rapid global dissemination of information on outbreaks of infectious diseases and acute exposures to toxins that affect human health, including those in animals and in plants grown for food or animal feed. Electronic communications enable ProMED-mail to provide up-to-date and reliable news about threats to human, animal, and food plant health around the world, seven days a week.
By providing early warning of outbreaks of emerging and re-emerging diseases, public health precautions at all levels can be taken in a timely manner to prevent epidemic transmission and to save lives.
ProMED-mail is open to all sources and free of political constraints. Sources of information include media reports, official reports, online summaries, local observers, and others. Reports are often contributed by ProMED-mail subscribers. A team of expert human, plant, and animal disease moderators screen, review, and investigate reports before posting to the network. Reports are distributed by email to direct subscribers and posted immediately on the ProMED-mail web site. ProMED-mail currently reaches 52,000 subscribers in more than 185 countries.
The objective of this initiative between ISID and the MBDS group is to facilitate access to information on the part of physicians, veterinarians and other public health workers in the MBDS region. Communication between the lists of ProMED-mail and PRO/MBDS will permit the reporting of important outbreaks that are occurring in the region and allowing for an early notification of outbreaks within the region.
Subscription to PRO/MBDS is free of charge (click on the subscribe link on the left).
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