Notre actualité | Epiconcept

From March 13 to 17, two project managers (technical and occupational) and the project director from EpiConcept trained 10 individuals on the functional and technical aspects of a newly created Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS). The trainees were composed of key lab personnel (biologists and information system managers) from Senegal, Mali and Burkina Faso and took place at the headquarters for pharmacies and laboratories (DGPML) in Ouagadougou. The project is supported by the Mérieux Foundation and the French Development Agency and will initially cover those three countries. This mission also gave EpiConcept personnel a chance to learn first-hand what issues had already been encountered as well as understand the needs for future versions of the software.

 Fondation_Merieux  

The third “Into Epi” course in Veyrier du Lac in France began on the 21st of March and will continue until April 4. This year, the training program brings together 22 participants from Mediterranean countries. The training is co-financed by the ECDC, the Mérieux Foundation  and EpiConcept. The course objectives are to familiarize the participants with the software tools for surveillance epidemiology, epidemiological investigations, analysis of epidemiological studies and communicating the results.

On January 25, epidemiological surveillance, investigative epidemiology, animal health surveillance, the role of laboratories, and the fight against germ vectors were the themes of this one-day seminar. The scientific presentations allowed the epidemiological surveillance professionals in the Indian Ocean to share their experiences by presenting surveillance systems, investigation results, and scientific protocols. EpiConcept and AEDES are the SAGA (epidemiological surveillance management and alert) project directors with two long-term assistants, Dr. Loïc Flachet and Dr. Richard Lepec who are based at the CIO (Commission for the Indian Ocean) headquarters on the island of Mauritius.

EpiConcept and the Center for Cancer screening in Haute-Garonne have partnered to create a system allowing radiologists to enter mammograph analyses directly into the computer as the X-ray is being interpreted. Currently, a radiologist must fill out a paper form which then gets transcribed into a database by a medical secretary. The analysis information once entered will then get stored in the NeoScope2 database system which some 60 French cancer screening centers are based on. As co-investors, both EpiConcept and the Haute-Garonne cancer screening center are keen to make sure that the system is fluid and makes the radiologist’s job of entering analysis information as easy as possible.

EpiConcept is preparing its third “Into-Epi” epidemiology training course for spring and this time welcoming participants from 27 mediterranean region countries.  Co-sponsored by the European Center for Disease prevention and Control and the Mérieux foundation, the course will start on March 21st and terminate on April 4th. It will be held at the Mérieux foundation’s conference center in Veryier du Lac, France,  located on Lake Annecy in the foothills of the French Alps. Candidates from the 27 countries were selected by their respective national health ministries and are those who are in charge of epidemiological surveillance, investigation, and research. The course will focus on data analysis with the latest computer software tools and be facilitated by EpiConcept epidemiologists and specialists from various countries.

In the context of a French National Institute of Cancer (InCA) call for proposal, EpiConcept will participate in the project of following 24000 women in the Ardennes region to study an alternative method for primary uterus cancer screening. Using EpiConcept’s current NeoScope2 screening information system as a base, the pilot system “START HPV” will be used to test the conditions needed to put in place a wider ranging screening based on HPV (Human papillomavirus) positive results instead of the current FCU (frottis cervico-utérin) method. Women over 30 years old (85% of the women) will use the HPV  method and 15% the traditional FCU. The four-year programme will start screening individuals in January 2012.

From the 14th to 20th of November, EpiConcept organized a training for the epidemiologists at the Hong Kong Centre for Health Protection. The objectives included the mastering of epidemic investigation principles and methods and the use of diverse software tools for surveillance, investigation, and applied research for infectious disease epidemics. In total, 20 people participated in this training led by Dr. Gilles Desvé and Dr. Alain Moren.

The technical difficulties associated with diagnosing tuberculosis in the young are a major challenge to treating the disease and controlling its progression, especially in HIV-infected children. Can the methods and strategies for accurately diagnosing tuberculosis in HIV-infected children be optimized?
That is the objective of the ANRS 12 229 PAANTHER 01 study coordinated by the Institut Pasteur in Cambodia. Epiconcept will be installing a Voozanoo-based information system that will track HIV-infected children over a six-month period. This study will enroll approximately 420 children, aged 0 to 13, in Cambodia, Vietnam, Burkina Faso, and Cameroon, and aims at improving diagnosis of tuberculosis in this population. The questionnaire consists of 200-plus questions, including data from biological analysis for certain visits during the 6 month period.  The information system will also incorporate medDRA, the international medical terminology dictionary. The Pasteur Institute plans to use the gathered data to create an algorithm for early tuberculosis diagnosis. The system will be operational in January.

EpiConcept has been retained for a one-year biostatistics mission for time series and regression analysis, cluster analysis, literature review and the creation of a toolkit for these. Epidemiologist at EpiConcept will be analysing transmittable disease surveillance data collected via the TESSy database that covers 30 countries of the European Economic Area and 49 diseases/conditions going back to 2006. The goal is to develop a generic tool to perform time series analysis (TSA) of these data. The epidemiology team at EpiConcept is headed by Dr. Alain Moren and Dr. Marta Valenciano.