2009 Swine Flu H1N1 Outbreak and Migration Map

Apr 30, 2009 12:13 GMT  ·  By

Want a complex perspective over the reports related to persons infected with Swine Flu? Then you turn to Live Search Maps/Virtual Earth and the 2009 Swine Flu H1N1 Outbreak and Migration Map. Users will be able to see the travel paths of Swine Flu cases around the world, as well as get similar information for suspect cases. 2009 Swine Flu H1N1 Outbreak and Migration Map offers not only the trajectories of Swine Flu infected and suspect persons worldwide, but also additional information, complete with links to sources, explained Chris Pendleton, Virtual Earth tech evangelist, Microsoft.

“Live Search Maps has a collection highlighting reported cases (both confirmed and unconfirmed) and the routes they traveled between home and vacation / business where they apparently contracted the strain,” Pendleton added. “The collection also has information about each point on the map. The official description is, “2009 Swine Flu H1N1 Outbreak and Migration Map - Map of 2009 Swine Flu H1N1 outbreaks and migration paths reported from news and government agencies. The map lists reported dates and paths of infected persons traveling.”

Google also offers a similar service, built of course on top of Google Maps. The Mountain View-based search giant also monitors the evolution of H1N1 Swine Flu pandemic. The Swine Influenza (Flu) is caused by a virus that mutated and jumped to humans. At this point in time, H1N1 is suspected of having killed over 150 people, the vast majority of which in Mexico. In addition to the 2009 Swine Flu H1N1 Outbreak and Migration Map, Pendleton also mentioned a Flash offering from Umapper.

UMapper built out a version of the swine flu data which overlays raster tiles on Virtual Earth and renders it through a Flash interface. The heat map (which gets updated a few times through the day) shows the impact of the outbreak around the world where the hot areas are white at the center cooling off to orange and purple. You can [see] how the flu has really taken off in North America as would be expected since the claim is that it originated in Mexico. Using the heat map, one could argue that it may have started in the US given the intensity in the respective areas,” he stated.