Apple iPhone users worried about swine flu will be pleased to learn: there's an app for that.
The new application, Outbreaks Near Me, lets users keep track of swine flu outbreaks in their vicinity almost in real time.
It also lets people inform other users of new flu cases near them.
Outbreaks Near Me uses data from HealthMap, a website developed by Dr John Brownstein of the Children's Hospital Boston and Clark Freifeld of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The site scans through reports from the US Centres for Disease Control, news outlets, blogs and Twitter for information on outbreaks of diseases worldwide.
The makers are not ready to claim that the new app will reduce disease in the long run. Mr Freifeld says: "We think that having more information and being more informed is better than...when you don't know what is happening.”
Hannah Gould at the Centers for Disease Control said: "I think that in general HealthMap and this new iPhone app make public health surveillance data more user-friendly.”
Automated summary from: Telegraph
