A Google a setésinfluenza nyomában

Hogyan hasznosítható a Google keresője a sertésinfluenza elleni küzdelemben?

The company is trying to compile information from swine flu-related Google searches in Mexico to map out how the disease is spreading through the country. The Mexican effort is based on Google Flu Trends, which the company launched last November in the U.S. At the time, Google officials said that they had found a connection between people searching for flu information and the number of people who actually have the flu in any given area. "Google Flu Trends may be able to detect influenza outbreaks earlier than other systems because it estimates flu activity in near real time," said Jeremy Ginsberg, one of the engineers on the Google Flu Trends project. Ginsberg acknowledged that the new effort, dubbed "Experimental Flu Trends for Mexico," may produce somewhat faulty data because of the lack of available recent information from the Mexican government. "While we would prefer to validate this data and improve its accuracy, we decided to release an early version so that it might help public health officials and concerned individuals get an up-to-date picture of the ongoing swine flu outbreak," said Ginsberg. "Our current estimates of flu activity in the U.S. are still generally low as would be expected given the relatively low confirmed swine flu case count. However, we'll be keeping an eye on the data to look for any spike in activity. In the United States, we were able to validate our estimates using data from a surveillance system managed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). We have not verified our data for Mexico in the same manner, but we've seen that Google users in Mexico (and around the world) also search for many flu-related topics when they have flu-like symptoms. Given the tremendous recent attention to swine flu, our model tries to filter out search queries that are more likely associated with topical searches rather than searches by those who may be experiencing symptoms. We're keenly aware of the trust our users place in us and our responsibility to protect their privacy. Experimental Flu Trends for Mexico -- like Google Flu Trends -- cannot be used to identify individual users. The patterns we observe are only meaningful across large populations of Google searchers."

IT3 komment: Úgy tűnik, a Google-keresés gyorsabb eredménnyel jár egy-egy vírus terjedésének felmérésében, mint például az Egyesült Államok járványügyi központjának vizsgálatai. A jövőre nézve igen tanulságos, hogy a keresési minták miként hasznosíthatók fertőző betegségek elleni küzdelem során. Nyilvánvalóan nem ez lesz az elsőszámú megoldás, de figyelmen kívül hagyni sem lehet.

Forrás:www.computerworld.com