Google monitors the flu live

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recyclinage
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Google monitors the flu live




by recyclinage » 09/10/09, 11:06

Influenza affects millions of people each year and kills thousands worldwide. In the face of these influenza viruses, early detection of the spread of the epidemic allows health services to govern more quickly. This is what the American google giant is proposing today for nine European countries, including France.

Google Influenza Tracking synthesizes search queries to provide real-time estimates of the spread of the virus in several countries and regions around the world. To do this, Google engineers created a model based on historical trends in queries by comparing them with official data published in France by the Sentinelles network. In order not to be "polluted" by a particular news item (for example a people who would catch the flu), the model is able to filter the requests which are not necessarily significant.

This new Google influenza monitoring tool is updated daily, which constitutes a complementary and almost real-time source of influenza activity at the national level but also at the regional level. "This tool has been in existence for nearly a year in the United States, where it has made it possible to accurately anticipate the peak of the disease almost 10 days before its onset" specifies Corrie Conrad, head of this project at google.

The intuitive interface allows any user to follow in almost real time the evolution of the flu epidemic in his region, to compare it on the same map with the levels of previous years going back to 2004. Only downside: a no man's land in central France, the model has not yielded good results for this region.

Will this tool replace official data from health authorities? No. "This system complements them and we hope to help both the health services and the general public," says Corrie Conrad. An opinion shared by Pr. Antoine Flahault, epidemiologist and influenza specialist: "Google influenza monitoring is a very useful tool and complementary to classic health monitoring instruments for the early detection and monitoring of influenza epidemics. It is It is remarkable to observe how technologies developed for other purposes can serve those of public health, especially when they remain free and available to the public, researchers, the media and decision-makers ”.

Tomorrow, this tool could include other diseases if existing disease history databases allow Google engineers to develop a reliable model. We can imagine tomorrow to see it decline for France from other sentinel network data, such as gastroenteritis or chickenpox ...

Source: Google France Press Conference - 8 October 2009


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