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Nov 12, 2008 6:46 pm US/Eastern
Google An Unlikely Ally In Fighting The Flu
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The site doesn't track laboratory confirmed cases, like the health department and the CDC do, which is why Google's information is about two weeks ahead. The similarity between searches and actual flu is uncanny.
KDKA
It's an unlikely ally in the fight against the flu.
And it's not a shot or not a drug - it's a web site.
Google Flu Trends was just launched.
How many of us have searched our own symptoms on Google when we're not feeling well?
Google says 30 to 40 percent of its users do just that. Now, this search engine is using this habit to predict where the flu hits next based on symptom searches.
"This is obviously not flu reporting, it's flu symptom reporting. And it's not even flu symptom reporting, it's flu symptom searches," says Dr. Andrew Norwalk.
Spikes in search terms like cough, fever and achiness can indicate the flu is peaking in a particular area.
The site doesn't track laboratory confirmed cases, like the health department and the CDC do, which is why Google's information is about two weeks ahead. The similarity between searches and actual flu is uncanny.
"What's remarkable though, looking at the flu trends data that Google has put together, is how perfectly their flu trend data every year since they've been able to track it, mimics the CDC's chart of flu incidence in the United States," Dr. Norwalk continues.
"I think it's another tool that I think CDC and everyone else in public health would welcome," Allegheny County Health Department spokesman Guillermo Cole says. "This maybe will give us some indication if there will be something unusual about the flu season."
Seeing influenza locally on Google could lead to people getting anti-flu medicine when it can actually work - early in the illness.
The county health department says that so far, it has no confirmed cases of the flu reported.
Typically, the peak occurs in January and February. We"ll see what Google predicts.
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