FASSSTER recognized by DOH for its COVID-19 monitoring platform

The FASSSTER  (Feasibility Analysis of Syndromic Surveillance Using Spatio-Temporal Epidemiological ModeleR) team, represented by Project Leader Dr Maria Regina Estuar, a professor at the Department of Information Systems and Computer Science (DISCS) and Executive Director of ACCCRe, Mathematical Modeling Team lead Dr Elvira de Lara-Tuprio, and Dr. Timothy Teng, was given recognition by the Department of Health (DOH) at the Recognition Ceremony for the DOH COVID-19 Health Expert Groups held at Conrad Manila on 29 April 2022.

The objective of the event was to provide a synthesis of all learnings and experiences from the COVID-19 response and recognize the role of the COVID-19 Health Expert Groups in the country’s COVID-19 mitigation and response.  

In operation since March 2020, the FASSSTER COVID-19 Platform, a cloud-based system disease surveillance tool, continues to house latest-case statistical and graphical reports, now-casting tools, forecasting tools, scenario-based projections, geospatial and Spatio-temporal models, and analysis covering the areas of health and health care utilization, as well as social, economic and security indicators. The FASSSTER platform remains at the forefront of decision-making by the National and Local Government agencies in relation to interventions, including community quarantines, granular lockdowns, and vaccination targets. 

The FASSSTER team is a multi-disciplinary team composed of computer and data scientists, mathematical and economics modelers, public health and epidemiological experts from DISCS, Mathematics Department, Economics Department, and Health Sciences Program of the Loyola Schools. 

Aside from Estuar, Tuprio, and Teng, the team comprises the following: Mr Joey Sescon (economic modeling lead), Mr Christian Pulmano, Mr Zachary Pangan, Mr Lenard Tamayo (DISCS faculty members); Mr. Lu Christian Ong, Mr. Jasper John Segismundo,  Dr. Mark Antholy Tolentino (Mathematics Department faculty members); Cymon Kayle Lubangco, Czar Joseph Castillo and Gerome Vedeja (Economics Department faculty members); Mr Romel John Santos, Mr Jay-Arr Buhain, Ms Alyssa Ty, Ms Raven Ico (ACCCRe Software Engineers), and Dr John Wong of the Health Sciences Program.  

The FASSSTER team continues to provide scenario-based projections to the sub-Technical Working Group on Data Analytics of the IATF in collaboration with the Australian Tuberculosis Modeling Network (AuTuMN). The United Nations Development Programme, the funding agency behind FASSSTER, continues to support and promote the use of the FASSSTER platform to regional and local government units.

FASSSTER is a disease surveillance and modeling platform initially designed for dengue, measles, and typhoid, funded by PCHRD, DOST from 2016 to 2020.