Tracking Internet Searches to Predict Disease Outbreak

submitted by Luis Kun

homelandsecuritynewswire.com - January 20, 2014

The habit of Googling for an online diagnosis before visiting a GP can provide early warning of an infectious disease epidemic.

In a new study published in Lancet Infectious Diseases, Internet-based surveillance has been found to detect infectious diseases such Dengue Fever and Influenza up to two weeks earlier than traditional surveillance methods.

A QUT release reports that senior author of the paper, Queensland University of Technology (QUT) Senior Research Fellow Dr. Wenbiao Hu said when investigating the occurrence of epidemics, spikes in searches for information about infectious diseases could accurately predict outbreaks of that disease.

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CLICK HERE - STUDY - Internet-based surveillance systems for monitoring emerging infectious diseases