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FluNearYou, a website allows you to track where the virus is active in your area in a bid to lower infection rates which experts are saying are already high for the year.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention said that even though we are currently five weeks ahead of the actual flu season, there have already been widespread reports of the illness across the country, hospitalizing 2,257 people and leaving 18 children dead before the end of 2012.

"We haven't seen such an early season since 2003 to 2004," said Lyn Finelli, lead of the surveillance and response team that monitors influenza for the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

Users of Flu Near You, a real-time tracking tool gaining about 100 new participants per week, say they're experiencing symptoms.

"That's huge," says John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital Boston. "Last year, we never got near this."

Brownstein is one of the founders of Flu Near You, a project, coordinated by Children's Hospital Boston, the Skoll Global Threats Fund and the American Public Health Association.

There is already real time data on the flu virus provided by the CDC which is based on visits to doctors for influenza-like illness, but that can lag two weeks or more behind real-time activity.

Meanwhile, Flu Near You, is real time and warns of whats happening in your area this very moment.

The dominant strain this year is the H3N2 strain, which can cause more serious illness. Flu seasons can vary widely, but some years are severe, with hospitalizations of up to 200,000 people and between 3,000 and 49,000 deaths during a season.

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