In the age of social media, we can track disease outbreaks like never before. Now, a new game from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention takes the armchair epidemiology to a whole new level.
The CDC created “Solve the Outbreak,” a new iPad app, to increase awareness of public health outbreaks. If you were a fervent fan of movies like Contagion or28 Days Later, you can put those hours of Internet research to work.
Users take on the role of a disease outbreak investigator in the agency’s Epidemic Intelligence Service and tackle three outbreak scenarios including “Birthday Party Gone Bad.” The narratives are based on real events solved by EIS officers.
“Do you quarantine the village? Talk to people who are sick? Ask for more lab results?” the app description asks. Participants learn health tips and definitions throughout the game and earn points to advance levels.
“This is a great learning tool for science teachers, teens, young adults, public health enthusiasts and mystery lovers,” said Carol Crawford, branch chief of CDC’s Electronic Media Branch in a press release. She added that there are plans to release more outbreaks for the app in the future. No word though on whether one of those additions will contain zombies.
Would you use the CDC outbreak app? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Source:http://mashable.com
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