Scientists have developed a system to predict the timing and
severity of seasonal influenza outbreaks that could one day help
health officials and the general public better prepare for them.
The system adapts techniques used in modern weather prediction
to turn real-time, Web-based estimates of influenza infection
into local forecasts of seasonal flu. Results appear online in
the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Year to
year, and region to region, there is huge variability in the
peak of flu season, which, in temperate areas of the Northern
Hemisphere, can happen as early as October or as late as April.
The forecast system can provide "a window into what can happen
week to week as flu prevalence rises and falls," says Jeffrey
Shaman, PhD, an assistant professor of Environmental Health
Sciences at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public
Health. As a test case, Dr. Shaman and Alicia Karspeck, PhD, of
the National Center for Atmospheric Research, used Web-based
estimates of flu-related sic