Softbank Mobile, Japan's biggest cell phone carrier, ...has a plan to equip the same amount of elementary-school students with GPS phones.
...the purpose this time is ...to test how GPS-enabled cell phones can help track the spreading of an infectious disease and stop it from becoming a pandemic.

The idea is really close to what we discussed during the last session of the Spring '09 Principles of Invention class. Specifically, we talked about enabling users, e.g via twitter, to report sneezing and coughing incidents around them. Coupled with GPS data, this information would provide a fairly accurate map of a swine flu pandemic. Furthermore, a P2P networking technology could even allow for "tagging" disease carriers.The system could also track people who live in "dangerous" zones and intend to travel within the disease incubation period.

Of course, this will only work if people tell report their true observations. Long term, sensors in public places, e.g. subway cars, might do a much better job at tracking the spread of a contagious disease.

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Below is the "Original map by Dr. John Snow showing the clusters of cholera cases in the London epidemic of 1854."