Dr Anastasia Anagnostou from the Department of Computer Science has been awarded Horizon 2020 funding for a 9.5 million Euro project entitled “Demonstration of intelligent decision support for pandemic crisis prediction and management within and across European borders” (STAMINA). The project consortium consists of 38 partners from 16 countries including nine First Responder organisations and eight National Planners in charge of pandemic crisis management.
Communicable diseases have the potential to result in serious cross-border public health threats. Efforts have been made to improve health security in the EU area through sharing of information and services. However management of this type of crisis remains an incredible challenge in a cross-border arena where there are different legal, administrative, professional and political cultures and therefore it becomes harder to detect threats, understand current circumstances and make joint decisions.
STAMINA aims to contribute to this crucial effort by focusing on providing solutions for the preparedness and response phases of the emergency management cycle by facilitating intelligent evidence-based decision support for practitioners at national and regional levels involved in pandemic crises management. For this purpose, STAMINA offers a variety of tools and guidelines. STAMINA leverages on concepts and technology that is either commercially available or has sufficiently matured through previous research projects, but not yet used by the national and regional health emergency planners or first responders of Europe in their daily practice of pandemics management.
The Coronavirus pandemic and the way COVID-19 outbreak affects all aspects of our society highlights the need for more research in the area of planning and preparedness for such global crises. STAMINA’s efforts will draw upon evidence and experiences from actions taken in the current pandemic crisis.
Dr Derek Groen and Professor Simon J. E. Taylor from the Department of Computer Science and Dr Nana Anokye and Professor Christina Victor from Health Sciences are also Co-Investigators on the project.