A globally-applicable disease ontology for biosurveillance; Anthology of Biosurveillance Diseases (ABD)

Biosurveillance, a relatively young field, has recently increased in importance because of its relevance to national security and global health. Databases and tools describing particular subsets of disease are becoming increasingly common in the field. However, a common method to describe those diseases is lacking. Here, we present the Anthology of Biosurveillance Diseases (ABD), an ontology of infectious diseases of biosurveillance relevance.