Sources & methodology
OutbreakThreat is a signal aggregator. Each item traces to an original publisher. We do not claim comprehensive worldwide surveillance.
Public ingest runs twice daily at 11:12 and 23:12 UTC. A publisher may post between those slots or delay listing a notice; the next complete run looks back past the last success with overlap so late listings are not skipped.
Working sources (currently yielding notices or a live structured list)
WHO Disease Outbreak News
International notices — Live structured API. Not comprehensive national coverage.
U.S. FDA food recalls (openFDA)
North America — Live. Windowed to notices since the last complete run, with overlap for delayed listing.
CDC foodborne investigations
North America — Live HTML list parser.
CDC hantavirus / cruise pages
North America — Live page ingest.
UK Food Standards Agency alerts
Europe — Live.
Canadian Food Inspection Agency recalls
North America — Live open-data file. Windowed to updates since the last complete run.
FSANZ RSS
Oceania — Live. Health-notice filter keeps toxin/recall items and drops standards applications.
UK Health Security Agency (GOV.UK atom)
Europe — Live. Vaccine-uptake and toolkit items are excluded.
South Africa NICD
Africa — Live situational reports.
Configured but not yielding notices
Africa CDC WordPress feed
Africa — Reachable RSS with an empty channel (quiet publisher). Not treated as a fetch failure.
U.S. CDC Health Alert Network RSS
North America — Configured, but this host currently receives HTTP 200 with an empty body. It does not yield live notices.
U.S. CDC outbreaks RSS
North America — Configured, but this host currently receives HTTP 200 with an empty body. It does not yield live notices.
Blocked from this host
USDA FSIS recalls
North America — Disabled — upstream blocks datacenter IPs.
Disabled until a working endpoint is verified
ECDC news RSS
Europe — Official rss.xml returned 404.
PAHO / WHO Americas RSS
Americas — Feed not verified as stable.
EFSA news RSS
Europe — No stable public RSS.
Unsupported / not ingested
National Asia food-safety APIs
Asia — India, ASEAN, China, Japan, Hong Kong CFS feeds were not verified as working ingest endpoints.
National ministries (Latin America / Caribbean)
Americas — No verified national ministry feeds beyond WHO DON.
New Zealand MPI
Oceania — Public URLs returned HTML, not a recall feed.
Credibility tiers
- Official — government agencies and established international public health bodies.
- Emerging — reputable secondary synthesis or corroborated reporting; official confirmation may still be pending.
- Chatter — weakly verified or single-source; hidden by default.
FAQ
- Are you an official health authority?
- No. OutbreakThreat aggregates and summarizes public notices. Always follow official agencies for mandates and medical decisions.
- Why can data be incomplete?
- Reporting delays, broad geographies, and differing case definitions mean signals are best treated as starting points with linked sources. Worldwide coverage is a goal, not proof of completeness.
- When is a source stale?
- A source is stale when scheduled checks fail. A quiet official listing with no new eligible items is not treated as stale just because nothing published in 72 hours. An HTTP 200 with an empty body is an empty response, not a successful notice.
- How often are official sources checked?
- Public ingest runs twice daily at 11:12 and 23:12 UTC. A publisher may post between those slots or delay listing a notice; the next complete run looks back past the last success with overlap so late listings are not skipped.
- What does "official" mean on OutbreakThreat?
- Official alerts come directly from a government health agency like WHO, CDC, FDA, or a state health department. We link to the original notice so you can read the full text and context.
- What is the difference between an outbreak alert and a confirmed outbreak?
- An alert on OutbreakThreat is a dated notice from an agency or reputable source. It might be an investigation update, a health advisory, or a surveillance report. It is not the same as a final case count or an officially declared outbreak. Agencies refine their wording as investigations continue.
- How often is outbreak data updated?
- We check our source agencies multiple times per day. New notices typically appear on OutbreakThreat within hours. Our editorial summaries are reviewed during business hours (Central Time).
- Can I get alerts for my home, school, or business?
- Yes. A Free account can save one watch area and receive a weekly digest of matching official notices, with no card required. Paid plans add more watches, and Family/Pro can send near-real-time email. The map and alert index stay free to browse.