Disease Tracking Tool Predicted Ebola Outbreak

By Katie Wike, contributing writer

Nine days before the World Health Organization announced the epidemic, and online tool predicted the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
An online disease tracking tool in Boston predicted the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa more than a week before it was formally announced by the World Health Organization (WHO). Healthmap identified the disease as a “mystery hemorrhagic fever” in forested areas of southeastern Guinea, and turned out to be the largest outbreak of Ebola ever recorded, killing nearly one thousand people so far.
According to Politico, Healthmap uses algorithms to filter through social media websites, local news, and government websites. Irrelevant data is tossed out and software classifies the relevant data and identifies diseases and their locations.
“In many parts of the world, we’re dealing with limited public health infrastructure, so in many cases, some the information coming from these social networks, from local news stories is the first time that we know about an event that’s unfolding,” HealthMap co-founder John Brownstein said. And so these sources, what we call “informal surveillance,” are actually helping us understand events on the ground very early on — sometimes earlier than public health can identify these things.”
Healthmap was introduced in 2006 when the nation was desperate for information regarding the swine flu. It is currently run by 45 epidemiologists and software developers at Boston Children’s Hospital.
“Our goal is to give governments and epidemiologists the most accurate and exact information as early as possible, so governments can respond better to infectious diseases,” Brownstein said.
To see Healthmap’s alerts for Ebola click HERE