Social media trends can predict tipping points in vaccine scares..

Social media trends can predict tipping points in vaccine scares.Analyzing trends on Twitter and Google can help predict vaccine scares that can lead to disease outbreaks, according to a study from the University of Waterloo. In the study, researchers examined Google searches and geocoded tweets with the help of artificial intelligence and a mathematical model. The resulting data enabled them to analyze public perceptions on the value of getting vaccinated and determine when a population was getting close to a tipping point. In the study, a tipping point represented the point at which vaccine coverage declines dramatically due to spreading fear, which could cause large disease outbreaks due to a loss of population immunity. As part of their study, the researchers collected tweets that mentioned measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and classified their sentiment using artificial intelligence computer programs. They also collected data on measles-related Google searches. Their mathematical theory on vaccine scares predicted what kind of early warning signals they should observe in the data. They found they were able to detect those signals in data from California before the 2014-15 Disneyland, California measles outbreak, which showed early warning signs of a tipping point two years before the outbreak occurred. Their mathematical model also predicted how the Disneyland outbreak helped push California back from the tipping point by making parents more afraid of the disease than the vaccine.

How to avoid monkeypox virus.

How to avoid monkeypox virus. When the Federal Ministry of Health announced on Thursday that the outbreak of monkeypox had spread to 11 states with 74 recorded cases, apprehension, as would be expected, is naturally growing among the populace. 

There is concern that the outbreak may grow to the level of an epidemic if steps are not taken by the citizenry, to break the chain of transmission. 

 A casual look at the monstrous blisters all over the face and body of an infected person, when the disease is at the advanced stage (as seen in the picture on this page) should be enough incentive to make every effort to avoid getting infected. Since the outbreak occurred in Bayelsa State on September 22, 2017, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has said the virus has marched into Rivers, Ekiti, Akwa Ibom, Lagos, Ogun and Cross River and five other states. Monkeypox is a viral zoonosis (a virus that is transmitted to humans from animals) which shows symptoms in humans similar to those seen in the past in smallpox patients, although less severe. 

 Smallpox was eradicated in 1980. According to medicine.com, monkeypox occurs sporadically in some parts of Africa. The symptoms of monkeypox include severe headache, fever, back pains among others. Other physical manifestations are huge rashes, the size of which are far bigger than those seen when a person has chicken pox. The rashes spread out all over the body of the infected person.

THE SMART PHONE AS A REVOLUTIONARY MEDICAL DEVICE.

Uber, Facebook, Alibaba and Airbnb all have something in common: none of these companies owns the asset that generates its unprecedented revenue (taxis, content, inventory and property rental).

This new business model is overhauling key industries throughout the economy.
 There are various platforms using the smart phone to deliver rapid and effective health care and veterinary services. 

An SMS,service in Nigeria delivers valuable information to subscribers about animal health and disease prevention.
The platform is planing an upgrade,where subscribers can interact in real-time.

 The service is enabled on any phone to cater for large number of farmers that dont have a smart phone,this is what the I-CONNECT-AGRICULTURE IS ALL ABOUT.

 A subscriber texts VET to 35818 from any network to signup.


There are a number of moonshots – large–scale government or enterprise–backed initiatives – promising to revolutionize the health sector, such as gene therapies, with powerful gene-editing technologies like CRISPR promising to transform medicine.

Costs associated with gene therapy have plummeted – where it once cost $100 million to decode one gene sequence, it now costs $1,000. There is a swarm of digital healthcare startups that is seeking to sort specific health challenges.

Moonshots rely on hundreds of billions of dollars of government grants or research endowments, but startups are able to disrupt their niches on very little money. And that's because someone else is paying to develop much of their technology – you, your friends and Kim Kardashian.

 The exploding online social interaction , a world where we reach for our smartphones a typical 155 times a day, where 52 billion messages are sent daily via WhatsApp, where you, Kim Kardashian and everyone else upload two billion pictures daily – puts enormous pressure on the smartphone industry to create and upgrade the technologies that accommodate this behavior.

 This includes super-high-resolution cameras, vast cellular bandwidth required to upload all our photos to the cloud, and the seemingly endless storage technology.

This very technology that allows us to keep up with the Kardashians also makes our smartphones unparalleled medical devices. A startup called Tissue Analytics lets you take pictures of a wound over time on your smartphone, allowing doctors to determine whether it's healing or festering.

   AliveCor lets you capture an electrocardiogram at home and alerts doctors if something is wrong with your heart. Netra Labs lets you take eye tests at home using mobile technology.

 China's internet giant Tencent recently acquired a major stake in Guahao, a startup that grew a massive user base as it enabled real-time geolocated physician appointments.

 This service was integrated into WeChat, as part of Tencent's vision of social digital healthcare. And there's a hardware and medical device arm – evident in the company's recent unveiling of its own glucometer.

 Because of all we are demanding from our smartphones and social networks, entrepreneurs with limited resources can now do what only governments could do ten years ago.

 All of these companies and hundreds more are leveraging today's Kardashianomics to make healthcare easier and effective while significantly reducing costs and freeing up our lives.

 Thanks to these digital wonders that define our engagement with today's technology and the startups that are harnessing it, our healthcare system is going to improve exponentially, and we as individuals are going to live longer… and better.

 Read more wired.co.uk