Johns Hopkins Releases 'Open Source' Suite for Automated Global Electronic bioSurveillance (SAGES)

The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center (AFHSC) have released the Suite for Automated Global Electronic bioSurveillance (SAGES), a collection of flexible, open-source software products developed for electronic disease surveillance in all settings.

Public health officials around the world, especially those with limited capabilities or resources to meet World Health Organization International Health Regulations requirements for outbreak surveillance and reporting, can use a SAGES system that is both effective and secure (http://www.jhuapl.edu/sages/).Through this initial open source code release, users can download and customize the various software to fit their needs, as well as contribute to the continued development of SAGES.

Developed by APL in collaboration with the Global Emerging Infections Surveillance and Response System (GEIS), a division of AFHSC, the free software suite is designed to collect, analyze, visualize and share information within a national disease surveillance system. Individual SAGES tools may be used to complement existing disease surveillance systems, or used all together to create an end-to-end disease surveillance capability.