Tracking the flu with ‘smart thermometers’

A company making “smart thermometers” that upload body temperatures to its website claims to be tracking this year’s flu season faster and in greater geographic detail than public health authorities can.

This year’s flu season — which the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers “moderately severe” — has left Missouri and Iowa the “sickest states in the country,” said Inder Singh, the founder of Kinsahealth.com.

California has had its worst outbreak in five years, with nearly 1 percent of the state exhibiting flu symptoms on Jan. 2, he added. By contrast, New York, New England and the Southeast have had relatively mild seasons so far, but cases are rising and should peak in two weeks.

Singh’s data paints a different picture from that of the CDC, which held a news conference Friday to announce that flu activity was “widespread” across the continental United States.

Hospitalization and death rates, though climbing, are lower than what was expected, said Dr. Daniel B. Jernigan, director of the CDC’s flu division.

The 2014-15 season — the one this season most closely resembles — killed 148. (This year’s final death toll will not be known until summer.)

The CDC data comes from hospitals and clinics. Delays can result if statisticians are busy or if state health departments do not pass on the figures quickly.

Kinsa, by contrast, is able almost instantly to spot fever spikes in states. More than 500,000 households own its smartphone connected oral and ear thermometers, Singh said, and the company gets about 25,000 readings each day.

(Of course, the company cannot measure hospitalizations, deaths or which strains of flu are circulating, or consistently distinguish flu from other febrile illnesses.)

Kinsa’s technology was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2014 and gathered data in subsequent flu seasons; the company hopes to soon publish a study by outside experts assessing its accuracy in measuring the seasonal spread.

“Hospitalization and death rates, though climbing, are lower than what was expected.” Dr. Daniel B. Jernigan director of the CDC’s flu division