Using a Google Maps Mashup to Track the Spread of Avian Bird Flu

A while back I interviewed a man in Canada on the topic of avian bird flu for a podcast on TalkingPortraits.com. Bird flu is a topic I'm watching carefully; however, I'm not overly worried at this point.

I'm cautious but I'm also aware of how easily hype can be generated, especially on the Internet. You'll need to decide for yourself the accuracy and believability of this data. Regardless of your decision, this is a timely example of how you can layer data on top of Google Maps for a useful mashup. Here's a small clip from an article at Nature.com about this:

To demonstrate the potential of 'mashups', which weave together data from different sources (see 'Mashups mix data into global service' ), Nature has created a simple example - a global visualization of avian flu cases and outbreaks. To our knowledge, this is the only source where all of this information has been brought together. The information was current as of December 2005. (Download the mashup by clicking here).

We used Google Earth to map over time each of the 1,800 or so outbreaks of avian flu in birds that have been reported over the past two years. The service also shows all confirmed human cases of infection with the H5N1 influenza virus in the same period.

Tom