Information technology has led to globalization of people, with international travel increasing to unprecedented levels. Such free travel also brings with it the danger of spreading infectious diseases all over the world, wherever it starts. The spread of H1N1 influenza was an illustration of this danger.
Information technology itself has provided solutions to the new dangers. For example, people all over the world can access portals like Healthmap.org and see not only what diseases are prevalent in which country (and how serious the problem is) but also report any missing disease outbreaks.
Healthmap describes themselves along the following lines: “HealthMap brings together disparate data sources to achieve a unified and comprehensive view of the current global state of infectious diseases and their effect on human and animal health. This freely available Web site integrates outbreak data of varying reliability, ranging from news sources (such as Google News) to curated personal accounts (such as ProMED) to validated official alerts (such as World Health Organization). Through an automated text processing system, the data is aggregated by disease and displayed by location for user-friendly access to the original alert. HealthMap provides a jumping-off point for real-time information on emerging infectious diseases and has particular interest for public health officials and international travelers.”
Healthmap org is reported to have collected more than 87,000 reports from both informal and official sources during the two major waves of the H1N1 pandemic. Healthmap uses Google Maps technology and sources its news from various agencies such as proMED Mail, WHO, Google News and Wildlife Disease Information Node.
