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(CNN) - If you have a fever, headache and runny nose, you can go to Google and type the words “flu symptoms” to see if you ‘ve come down with the flu.

Google knows that you could do something like that, and they also know what state you’re from. Now, they’ve put that information into a tool that could detect influenza outbreaks faster than traditional systems currently in use.

Google ‘s new public health initiative, Google Trends flu, look at the relative popularity of a lot of flu-related search terms to find that in the U.S. influenza outbreaks could be happening.

“What ‘s exciting about the flu trends is that it allows anyone – epidemiologists, health officials, mothers with sick children – to learn about the current level of flu activity in their own state on the basis of data coming in on a weekly basis, “said Jeremy Ginsberg, the chief engineer who developed the site.

The tool, launched on Tuesday, operates on the idea that there ‘s likely to be a flu outbreak in the states where the flu-related search terms are currently popular.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collaborated with Google on the project, helping to refine and validate the model, and has provided monitoring data of influenza during a period of five years, said Dr. Joseph Bresee, chief of epidemiology and prevention branch of the CDC ‘s influenza division.

Despite the fact that there is no substitute for the real need for surveillance data, viral flu Trends is a good model, and the CDC hopes that this is evident this flu season, Bresee said.

“We are very excited about the future of the use of different technologies, including the technology of this kind, to try to see if there ‘s better ways of doing surveillance for outbreaks of influenza or any other disease in the States United, ” he said. “In theory at least, this idea can be used for any disease and any health problems.”

The researchers found a strong correlation between the relative popularity of flu-related search terms and CDC ‘s surveillance data.

In the 2007-08 flu season, Google can calculate the precise levels of flu in one to two weeks faster than the CDC published reports on each of the nine U.S. regions surveillance, Google said in a statement.

Traditionally, influenza surveillance has involved the doctors’ reports of patients with flu symptoms, laboratory reports of influenza from nasal and throat swabs, and death certificates.

Only that kind of analysis will detect the spread of the flu strains not covered by the flu shot, information that the search engines can not, experts say.

However, there has been concern that the influenza surveillance systems in place are not fast enough, and the new tool could be useful for the purpose of detecting outbreaks quickly, said Dr. Randall Stafford, associate professor of medicine at Stanford University ‘s Research Center for Prevention, who was not involved in the project.

“Sacrificing accuracy can not necessarily bring a great pity if you’re able to predict the increase in the incidence of influenza, as well as other systems, and do it more quickly,” he said.

However, there are limitations, Bresee said. The tool may miss cases of spread of influenza among the elderly, because they are less likely to use the Internet than young people, said Stafford. He also noted that many of the flu search terms that people typed in related to viral infections and not really the flu.

Google has also taken into account that sometimes people look for influenza-related terms in response to specific news headlines and really do not have the flu, said Ginsberg. The tool search terms, for example, reflect the search by a person who has chest congestion or want to buy a thermometer, he said.

Trends of the flu can also help make medical diagnoses, said Ginsberg.

“I would be very reluctant to diagnose the flu at this time of the year, but if the tool tells me that influenza in California is actually increasing dramatically, it might be more likely or willing to diagnose it,” says Stafford.

The flu is responsible for over 500,000 deaths each year worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.

Trends of the flu can not be used to identify individual users. The search engine is based on the aggregated count, on how often certain search terms occur every week. But every computer connected to the Internet has its own Internet protocol address, or IP address, which reveals its location to Google.

Software engineers and public health experts at Google.org, the company ‘s philanthropic arm, collaborated on the project, said Ginsberg. The search engine giant turned 10 years old this year.

The overall activity of influenza in the U.S. is low, although some states – such as Hawaii, Arkansas, Mississippi, Kentucky, Maine and Delaware – have “moderate” activity, according to Google ‘s map, based on current data until Monday.

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So do you think this is a useful tool?

Could it detect an outbreak of Bird flu?

What about those people in China who lived in remote villages without internet access?

What are your thoughts?

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