Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Nov 10;9(1):683.
doi: 10.1038/s41597-022-01797-2.

A global dataset of pandemic- and epidemic-prone disease outbreaks

Juan Armando Torres Munguía  1 , Florina Cristina Badarau  2 , Luis Rodrigo Díaz Pavez  3 , Inmaculada Martínez-Zarzoso  3   4 , Konstantin M Wacker  5
Affiliations

A global dataset of pandemic- and epidemic-prone disease outbreaks

Juan Armando Torres Munguía et al. Sci Data. .

Abstract

This paper presents a new dataset of infectious disease outbreaks collected from the Disease Outbreak News and the Coronavirus Dashboard produced by the World Health Organization. The dataset contains information on 70 infectious diseases and 2227 public health events that occurred over the period from January 1996 to March 2022 in 233 countries and territories around the world. We illustrate the potential use of this dataset to the research community by analysing the spatial distribution of disease outbreaks. We find evidence of spatial clusters of high incidences ("hot spots") in Africa, America, and Asia. This spatial analysis enables policymakers to identify the regions with the greatest likelihood of suffering from disease outbreaks and, taking into account their degree of preparedness and vulnerability, to develop policies that may help contain the spreading of future outbreaks. Further applications could focus on combining our data with other information sources to study, for instance, the link between environmental, globalization, and/or socioeconomic factors with disease outbreaks.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Schematic overview of the data collection and integration processes. (A) Data collection and database of the DONs; (B) Data collection and database of the Coronavirus Dashboard; (C) Geo-spatial information.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
The schematic overview of the technical validation processes is illustrated in five steps: (A) Database with 2227 unique outbreaks (Outbreaks.RData); (B) Random selection of 100 unique outbreaks; (C) Information on the web about the DONs; (D) Corroboration of the information; (E) Validation results.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Map of infectious disease outbreaks.
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Number of outbreaks by country, disease and year. (a) Top 20 countries with the highest number of outbreaks; (b) Number of outbreaks by disease; (c) Number of outbreaks by year.
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
Moran scatterplot of the frequency of outbreaks.
Fig. 6
Fig. 6
Local significance map.
Fig. 7
Fig. 7
LISA clusters.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. WHO. WHO Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dashboard With Vaccination Data. Available at https://covid19.who.int/ (2022).
    1. WHO. Global Health Estimates 2019. Deaths by Cause, Age, Sex, by Country and by Region, 2000–2019, 2020.
    1. Jones KE, et al. Global trends in emerging infectious diseases. Nature. 2008;451:990–993. doi: 10.1038/nature06536. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Smith KF, et al. Global rise in human infectious disease outbreaks. Journal of the Royal Society, Interface. 2014;11:20140950. doi: 10.1098/rsif.2014.0950. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Heymann DL. The International Response to the Outbreak of SARS in 2003. Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences. 2004;359:1127–1129. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2004.1484. - DOI - PMC - PubMed