MECIDS

:: Background
Since its founding in 2003, MECIDS has focused on foodborne diseases, offering multinational training courses for health workers from Palestine, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, giving them a chance to meet each other while honing their professional skills and creating a system through which the participating Ministries of Health are sharing information directly . more

MECIDS members use this website to communicate with each other, post any new disease outbreaks, and report any suspected/confirmed avian influenza cases though a secured password protected area.

PUBLICATIONS

:: Israel, PA and Jordan cooperate as flu threat grows, by Karin Kloosterman, May 04, 2009 (please see attachment)

:: British Medical Journal- Regional collaboration in the Middle East to deal with H5N1 avian flu (please see attachment)

:: The Virus Does not Stop at the Checkpoint
Public health professionals are a very special breed of human being. more

:: Infectious disease surveillance as a bridge to peace in the Middle East, by Dr. Alex Leventhal (please see attachment)

Avian Influenza Meetings

Read the reports of all the meeting that MECIDS has conducted regarding avian flu.

:: MECIDS Regional Pandemic Influenza Table Top Exercise, Preliminary Summary Report 2008

:: First Four-Way Meeting on "Bird Flu" (December 11-14, 2006)

:: PA/IS Health officials quick reaction meeting on Avian Flu I (March 19th, 2006)

:: MECIDS quick reaction meeting on Bird Flu II (March 27th, 2006)

:: MECIDS meeting and briefing on Avian Influenza (April 5th, 2006)

:: Risk Communication (May 17-18, 2006)

:: MECIDS Amman, Jordan Meeting (January 16-18, 2006)

:: MECIDS write First Sub-Regional Common Avian Influenza Plan

Avian Influenza Country Plans

Each MECIDS country has established an avian influenza Plan of Action, and within each plan there is a section where regional cooperation must take place. MECIDS has brought together our member countries to write up this sub-regional common plan of action for avian influenza.

:: MECIDS Regional Pandemic Influenza Table Top Exercise 2008

:: Palestine (plan)

:: Israel (plan)

:: Jordan (plan)

:: MECIDS AI Common Plan of Action (plan)

Useful Avian Influenza related links

:: CDC-Avian Flu

:: World Health Organization

:: UK Risk Communication

:: The International Molecular Subtyping Network for Foodborne Diseases Surveillance.

Useful Maps

:: WHO-International Health Regulation 2005 (IHR 2005)

MECIDS Battles Avian Influenza

Palestine, Israel, and Jordan's Ministries of Health and Agriculture started to plan for the battle against avian influenza long before the threat came to the region. In the Middle East Consortium on Infectious Disease Surveillance (MECIDS) annual meeting in June of 2005, members decided to take on avian influenza, they agreed that influenza, even more than foodborne diseases, does not respect national boundaries and that international planning is essential. Despite the changing and unstable political situation in this region, both before and after the appearance of the H5N1 virus in poultry in February, 2006, MECIDS managed to meet several times (more) to draft a sub-regional common plan of action for the three neighboring countries and to manage and control this deadly virus.