Google unveils India 'health cards' as it eyes vast market

 06-Apr-16, The Star 

Google began offering its own doctor-vetted health information on search pages in India, as the Internet giant battles to boost user numbers in the key emerging market.

Image: AFP

The "health cards", available in Hindi and English, cover more than 400 conditions and give basic information such as typical symptoms, the prevalence of a disease and medical illustrations for people with limited reading skills.

After the United States and Brazil, India is the third country to get the health cards, which appear at the top of a Google search page when searching using its smartphone app. The Indian health cards were produced together with India's Apollo Hospitals and Columbia Asia Hospitals.

Approximately one in 20 Google searches worldwide is for health-related information, the search giant said. 

Even medical professionals rely on Google, with 45% of hospital doctors in India using it 2-3 times a month, according to a 2015 Global Growth Markets survey for Elsevier. 

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And in the same survey 77% of Indian doctors said instant access to the latest reference content is "extremely important" to them, compared with 41% for Asia-Pacific as a whole. 

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