Disease Outbreak Warnings Via Social Media Sought by U.S.
By Kathleen Miller Apr 11, 2014 12:00 AM ET
Whooping cough first sickened the Illinois high school cheerleaders, then it struck the football players, the cross-country team and the band.
As it spread within the Chicago suburb of McHenry County in late 2011, another outbreak took place -- on social media. A small business called Sickweather LLC said it detected the online flare-up on Twitter Inc. (TWTR) and Facebook Inc. (FB) postings in early October that year. That’s about two weeks before local health officials issued a public statement.
Now, U.S. agencies want to expand their use of social media to spot potential biological attacks and outbreaks of deadly infectious diseases, including the new H7N9 avian flu that has killed dozens of people in China.
“That’s the Holy Grail,” said Mark Dredze, an assistant research professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and a Sickweather adviser. “We’d love these systems to tell us there’s a brand new disease and it’s going to be a big thing.”
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