About OutbreakThreat

OutbreakThreat is an independent disease tracking platform that aggregates official health agency notices from around the world. Every map marker, alert, and editorial summary links to a dated notice from an agency like the World Health Organization (WHO), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), or state and local health departments.

The site was created because finding timely, verifiable outbreak information in one place is harder than it should be. Agency dashboards are authoritative but fragmented - WHO publishes Disease Outbreak News, CDC issues Health Alert Network messages, FDA posts food-safety advisories, and state health departments announce investigations on their own portals. OutbreakThreat brings those notices together so users can scan geography on a map, read a summary, and click through to the original notice in seconds.

What we do

• Aggregate official outbreak notices - ingestion adapters fetch WHO Disease Outbreak News, CDC Health Alert Network messages, FDA advisories, and other agency feeds on a scheduled basis.
• Plot alerts on a searchable map - each marker includes the source agency, event date, geography, credibility tier, and a direct link to the source document.
• Publish editorial summaries - staff-reviewed briefs add context, key facts, and frequently asked questions while citing every claim to an agency URL.
• Deliver optional email alerts - paid subscribers save watch areas and receive notifications when new official or emerging signals match their geography and disease preferences.

What we are not

OutbreakThreat is not a government agency, a medical provider, or a laboratory. We do not diagnose, treat, or provide personal risk scores. We do not conduct epidemiological investigations. Information on this site is for informational purposes only. Users should always follow guidance from their healthcare professionals and local public health authorities.

How we track outbreaks

Scheduled ingestion processes query official feeds - primarily WHO Disease Outbreak News and CDC notice feeds - at least twice daily. Each fetched item is matched to a disease in our taxonomy, geocoded to the geography named in the notice, and stored as an OutbreakSignal with a credibility tier of Official, Emerging, or Watch.

Published health stories link back to their parent signal and cite source URLs directly. Signals that cannot be geocoded (because the agency used broad or unnamed geography) are flagged as unmapped and excluded from the map until a location can be resolved.

We prioritize source quality over volume. Alerts without a verifiable source URL are not published. Low-trust or single-source items are classified as Watch-tier and hidden from default browsing and email alerts.

Sources we monitor

Our current and planned ingestion adapters cover:

• WHO Disease Outbreak News (DON)
• CDC Health Alert Network (HAN) and outbreak investigation pages
• FDA food recalls and safety advisories
• European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC)
• State and local health department portals
• USDA/USGS animal-health surveillance where relevant
• Public health agency RSS feeds and structured data endpoints

See the full Sources & methodology page for credibility tiers, adapter details, and known limitations.

Editorial standards

Every published brief must cite at least one verifiable source URL. Summaries are written in plain English and reviewed for accuracy against the original agency text. We do not publish health claims that cannot be traced to an official or reputable source. When agency notices are updated or corrected, we update our summaries accordingly and note the revision date.

Read our full editorial policy and corrections policy.

Contact

Questions, corrections, or partnership inquiries: support@outbreakthreat.com

See also: Contact page