Google Flu Trends provides early warning

Google Flu Trends, the tool that is designed to provide near real-time estimates of flu activity in a country and offers an early warning of new outbreaks, is now available in South Africa.

Certain search queries tend to be very common during flu season each year. By creating a model based on historical search query patterns and comparing this with data provided in the public domain through the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), a division of the National Health Laboratory Service, Google Flu Trends can estimate how many people have a flu-like illness the level of flu activity at any given time. While traditional methods of flu tracking, like surveying doctors and patients, can take one to two weeks to collect and release data, Google search queries can provide an immediate, accurate reflection of flu activity in a given location.

An additional source of information

Dr Cheryl Cohen, head of Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit, National Institute for Communicable Diseases, a division of the National Health Laboratory Service, South Africa, said, "We are excited about the introduction of Google Flu Trends to South Africa. These current estimates of flu activity will provide an additional source of information for helping us understand the timing of the influenza season in South Africa. With so many visitors to our country for the World Cup, it's especially important that we have as much and as timely flu data as possible."

"Flu affects millions, even killing hundreds of thousands of people each year. Early detection enables medical professionals to react quickly and save lives," said Corrie Conrad, project manager on Google Flu Trends.

"It's a privilege to work closely with leading public health organisations like the NICD to arm doctors, parents and others with a Google Search tool that can may help keep people healthy this flu season."

In addition to raising awareness of serious health problems, aggregate search data has the power to provide great insights on what is happenings that people are curious about, for example showing interest in different political candidates during an election, offering a glimpse at people's interests and passions, and helping to raise awareness of serious health problems.

For more on Flu Trends go to www.google.org/flutrends/.