High correlation of Middle East respiratory syndrome spread with Google search and Twitter trends in Korea.

Soo-Yong Shin,Dong-Woo Seo,Sung-Han Kim,Jisun An,Jin Gwack,Haewoon Kwak,Min-Woo Jo

doi:10.1038/srep32920

Abstract

The Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) was exported to Korea in 2015, resulting in a threat to neighboring nations. We evaluated the possibility of using a digital surveillance system based on web searches and social media data to monitor this MERS outbreak. We collected the number of daily laboratory-confirmed MERS cases and quarantined cases from May 11, 2015 to June 26, 2015 using the Korean government MERS portal. The daily trends observed via Google search and Twitter during the same time period were also ascertained using Google Trends and Topsy. Correlations among the data were then examined using Spearman correlation analysis. We found high correlations (>0.7) between Google search and Twitter results and the number of confirmed MERS cases for the previous three days using only four simple keywords: “MERS”, “” (“MERS (in Korean)”), “” (“MERS symptoms (in Korean)”), and “” (“MERS hospital (in Korean)”). Additionally, we found high correlations between the Google search and Twitter results and the number of quarantined cases using the above keywords. This study demonstrates the possibility of using a digital surveillance system to monitor the outbreak of MERS.

Highlights

Twitter during the same time period were ascertained using Google Trends and Topsy
This study showed high correlations between the results obtained by searching for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS)-related keywords using Google search and Twitter and the number of confirmed MERS cases
Because MERS is a healthcare-associated infection, it is interesting that digital surveillance using Google search and Twitter, which operate via input from the general public, may work well for surveillance

Summary

Introduction

Twitter during the same time period were ascertained using Google Trends and Topsy. We found high correlations (>0.7) between Google search and Twitter results and the number of confirmed MERS cases for the previous three days using only four simple keywords: “MERS”, “. We found high correlations between the Google search and Twitter results and the number of quarantined cases using the above keywords. The outbreak in South Korea was triggered by one imported case This outbreak caused 186 laboratory-confirmed infections, including 38 (20%) deaths as of December 22 2015, which resulted in a global threat to neighboring nations, such as China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan[6]. To enable the earlier identification of an outbreak of an emerging communicable disease such as MERS, a syndrome surveillance method that uses real-time data, including both health-related and non-health-related data, has been proposed[9].

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Conclusion