Virtual command center for the Worl Health Organization to fight Ebola, and other outbreaks.

The World Health Organisation today opened an emergency response centre to tackle illnesses that verge on becoming pandemic - such as bird flu and SARS - anywhere in the world in 48 hours.
"The need to be able to bring together scientists from all over the world, rapidly, in a virtual network, either through audio-visual or computer links, provides us with an ability to get the best minds in the world working on a public health problem immediately," he said.


The five million dollar room, which opened in August for testing, could quickly be redesigned and reshaped for different emergency uses. It has been equipped with dial-up, audio-visual conferencing in three areas, which can operate independently of power cuts, breakdown in telephone service, or other communication problems at WHO, he said.


"We don't need to get people together physically," Ryan said. "We can leave lab people working in their labs on the diagnostics. We can leave clinicians working on the frontlines in the hospitals, but we can bring them together virtually to exchange information rapidly during a crisis."