MRSA spread could be tracked through Google search patterns
Google searches are apparently providing much more important information than just a typical search for a local restaurant or research for a term paper. Google trends are also providing much more information than just the ‘top celebrity gossip’ and news searches. According to a paper published in the June issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases, epidemiologist Diane Lauderdale of the University of Chicago show how Google searches and trends could be used to better track the spread of methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA.
MRSA causes a drug-resistant staph infection which was originally seen in hospitals and became widespread in the 1980s. In the 1990s, a community strain emerged and began affecting healthy people outside of hospitals, with a large infection spreading in 2005 that has been linked to the death of 18,650 Americans as reported by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in 2007.