IBM has announced that it has made available an advanced software technology that can help predict the transmission of diseases across countries and around the globe to the open source community. The tool claims to aid scientists and public health officials in understanding and planning more efficient responses to health crises.

The software, known as Spatio-Temporal Epidemiological Modeler (STEM), is now available for use through the Eclipse Open Healthcare Framework Project (OHF), hosted at the Eclipse Foundation.

"With growing concerns over potential outbreaks of new strains of disease, and their ability to spread more easily because of modern transportation - the threat of a pandemic certainly is a global phenomenon," said Dr. Daniel Dias, director, IBM India Research Laboratory.   "Our response must be similarly global, and must rely -- as with so many other major issues we face today -- on open, collaborative innovation."

STEM, which runs on any operating system, creates a graphical representation of the spread of a disease based on a variety of parameters such as population, geographic and macro-economic data, roadmaps, airport locations, travel patterns and bird migratory routes around the world.