Japan tested the use of mobile phones in preventing epidemics

Without the necessary measures, the H1N1 epidemic will quickly attack students at schools, then spread to parents and other community members. But the authorities are working hard to prevent disease and protect schools from using mobile phones.

The context is a real epidemic, this is an experiment conducted by the Japanese government. A company of Softbank Group, Japan's largest Internet and cell phone provider, has proposed a system to use the phone to limit disease.

Specific details have not yet been fixed, but Softbank hopes to choose an elementary school with 1,000 students and equip them with phones with GPS installed. Their positions will be recorded every minute and stored on the central server.

Some students will be assumed to have the flu, and their movements for a few days will be compared to the rest. Storage GPS data can then be used to determine who has shared a path with an infected child and is at risk of infection.

These 'at risk' families will be notified via text message to their cell phones, instructing them to check with their doctor. In the context of a real outbreak of disease, this can limit new infection rates.

'The number of people infected by such a disease often increases exponentially. If the rate drops, even a little, will be a big step in controlling the disease situation, 'said Masato Takahashi, staff of Softbank's infrastructure strategy.

He illustrated by calculation: if an infected person spreads the disease to three other people in one day, and each new person spreads the flu to three others, about 10 million people will get sick on the 10th day. In case each person infected with the flu only spreads the disease to two others, on the 10th day, the infection is only 1,500.

The experiment was formed before the outbreak of swine flu, but it is now really noticeable because Japan is now the largest confirmed country outside of North America.

This photo was taken on May 21, in which many students wore swine flu masks on a pier in Kawasaki, west of Tokyo, after the first cases of influenza were confirmed in Japanese capital.(Photo: AP / Shuji Kajiyama)

This is one of 24 trials that the government has approved in a program to promote increased use of Internet infrastructure and mobile networks in Japan. This country is proud of owning some of the world's most advanced mobile technologies. The country has a high-speed mobile phone network, and phones come standard with features like GPS, TV viewing and touch recognition.

However, the mobile phone market is almost saturated, and the fee gradually decreases while the price competition continues. For Softbank, a government-paid public health service will be a lucrative business project.

GPS has certain limitations, such as poor signal when the device is in the house. But Softbank believes that it can read the exact location within a few meters, at least for a limited area test.

To date, technologies such as GPS are primarily used to help people know where they are and where they are near. As networked devices like the iPhone become more and more popular, new applications allow people to follow their children or friends, and help agencies and governments to control their position. themselves.

Aoyama Gakuin, a prestigious university in Tokyo, is providing Apple iPhone 3G phones to students as a way of taking attendance via a GPS connection in an application running on the phone.

This type of project raises concerns about the protection of personal information , and one of the Japanese government's test objectives is to assess how participants feel about their position. continuously recorded by state agencies.

If a real disease surveillance system is started, the government will not require people to register on the system, citing Takuo Imagawa, a Japanese Ministry of Communications and Interior official.

Another problem that arises in the experiment is how to inform people that they are likely to be infected, even if it is just a virtual disease.

'If we don't think carefully about the content of the warning, those who receive the message may be panicked,' said Katsuya Uchida, a professor at the Information Security Institute in Yokohama.

Softbank Telecom, the company that proposed the test, may not be selected by the department to conduct the test. But Takahashi said that no matter which company was chosen, he hoped the potential benefits of the system would be enough to convince people to register for membership and disclose any information about their location. when.

'I think such a system would work better than Tamiflu,' he said.