A manufacturer of over-the-counter cold and flu remedies launched a program this week for the T-Mobile G1, known as the “Google phone,” that warns users about how many people in an area are suffering colds. The “Zicam Cold & Flu Companion” will state, for example, that 8 to 14% of the people in a zip code have respiratory illnesses, representing a “moderate” risk level. To give hypochondriacs and germophobes even more information to ponder, it also will describe what symptoms are common, such as coughing and sore throat. Users can additional request the application to provide information about risk levels in other zip codes, so they can steer clear of, for example, Atlanta, one of the five most infected cities in the nation currently, according to Zicam.

Matrixx Initiatives Inc., the Arizona company that manufacturers products under the Zicam brand, receives the information on disease levels from Surveillance Data Inc. - which inturn gets its data from polling health care providers and pharmacies. The “Companion” is available for free from the Android Marketplace, the directory of downloadable programs for the G1. Notably, later this month, the program will be available for the iPhone, according to Matrixx. Google which created the G1’s operating system, launched its own national and state web-based flu tracker recently. This information is based on the number of people conducting flu-related searches into Google’s search engine.