As the world worries about an imminent pandemic, some retailers and game creators are seeking new ways to monetize on swine flu.

Searches related to “swine flu” during the week ending April 26, grew by more than twenty-fold from the previous week, according to comScore, an online measurement company. The data shows that 501,000 people conducted 929,000 searches last week.

Marketers have caught on this trend as an opportunity to communicate with concerned consumers. ComScore noted that a 271 different advertisers bought keywords relating to Swine flu, up from just 73 the previous week and 33 the week before that.

A site has begun selling Flu Shirts, an online T-Shirt marketplace that offers some rather provocative titles on them which relate to the current Swine flu outbreak.

Shirts with tags like Maybe the Muslims were right about pigs and My dad went to Mexico and all he got me was swine flu are on display.

Meanwhile, a video game, called Swinefighter is gaining popularity online. The point of the game is to save the world - and yourself - from killer pigs.The game consists of clicking on infected pigs to inject them with a needle and some vaccine which makes them say, Oink!

Although the game was made for entertainment purposes, the site also features some useful tips from the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on how to stay healthy.

Watch a clip of the game below:

Mexico Medicine