After Haiti’ earthquake two year ago, cholera wept the country. And within a month, the ame train had pread to the Dominican Republic and the U.S., and then to Venezuela, Mexico, Spain, and Canada.
Fat and accurate tool are needed to help avoid uch national and international epidemic. But it often take week for traditional dieae urveillance method to reveal an illne’ pread. So reearcher turned to the internet a a poible tracking tool. They culled information in eight language from ource uch a new article and blog during the firt hundred day after the earthquake. They alo earched Twitter.
With data from more than 4,500 report and nearly 189,000 tweet, they mapped the outbreak and determined it progre, via an application called HealthMap. The information matched official reult in certain place and generally followed the ame trend. But unlike the officially iued information, thi data could be collected immediately—and could have been available up to two week fater. The comparion wa publihed in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
[Rumi Chunara, Jaon R. Andrew and John S. Browntein, Social and new media enable etimation of epidemiological pattern early in the 2010 Haitian cholera outbreak.
The cientit ay thee method could provide a fater repone to an epidemic—and potentially help limit uffering uch a Haiti’ in the future.[由www.haoZuowen.Com整理]
—Cynthia Graber