Here’s another neat and delightfully unexpected use of technology to help epidemiologists track disease and investigate outbreaks. Yes, everyone’s talking about new uses for social networking, but because the affluent of the human race are quickly becoming attached at the palm to their mobile devices, why not put social networking to use for outbreak investigation?
The story from the New York Times:
In February, there’s a party at the playboy mansion for attendees of an annual conference – food, music, dancing, etc. Conference attendees scatter home to their various locales. A couple days later one of the attendees is feeling terrible with cough and fever, posts his status update on Facebook, and asks if any other attendees are feeling the same thing. Before you know it, 80 cases have been identified, the diagnnosis is suspected to be legionellosis, the hypothesis is that it was caused by the articificial fog machine, and the Wikipedia legionellosis page has been updated with their outbreak. All this without the involvement of a single health official or epidemiologist!
CDC put an EIS officer on the case, who aptly contacted cases and dispensed advice through Facebook, and also directed them to CDC’s online questionnaire. Results of the study have not yet been published.
