Swine flu tracked via internet

The internet is being used as a tool to track swine flu and other infectious diseases as they spread around the world, researchers have indicated.

A new tool called HealthMap.org is a way of categorising, aggregating and showing real-time information about infectious diseases, according to the Informatics Programme at the Children's Hospital Boston (CHIP).

Clark Freifeld, research software developer at CHIP and co-designer of the programme, noted that the H1N1 swine flu was first detected by the resource on April 1st, weeks before other sources had identified it.

"The practice of mining the internet for public health surveillance purposes has quickly emerged as a valuable way to support and enhance the traditional public health infrastructure," he stated in the New England Journal of Medicine.

"News reports in particular can be a valuable resource for information as inherently the media has the ability to saturate towns, cities and communities where public health officials may or may not be present and report on potential disease outbreaks."

Avian flu and listeria are two of the diseases Health Map has been used to track.

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