About VirusWatch.

Our Mission

VirusWatch is an independent website created to make public health data accessible to everyone, everywhere, free.

We aggregate, clean, and present infectious disease surveillance data from primary public health institutions — the WHO, CDC, ECDC, and PAHO — in a format that is readable on any device, free of advertising. Live disease data updates hourly; baseline figures for other diseases are updated manually when WHO or CDC publishes new official data. Our goal is simple: if there is an outbreak anywhere in the world, you should be able to learn about it in under 30 seconds, without needing a public health degree to understand what you're reading.

We are not a news organization. We do not write original stories. We do not editorialize, speculate, or amplify unverified reports. Everything on this site is sourced directly from public-health sources and published reports, peer-reviewed publications, or WHO/CDC factsheets, and we clearly label the origin of every piece of data.

VirusWatch is an independent project, built and maintained by a small team, and we rely on community support to keep the servers running. See our Editorial Policy for full details on our sources, correction process, and independence standards.

What We Track

VirusWatch monitors eight diseases of current international concern, selected based on WHO and major public health agency guidance:

• COVID-19 — caused by SARS-CoV-2, the most significant pandemic pathogen of the 21st century
• Dengue — mosquito-borne flavivirus infecting ~400 million people per year
• Ebola — filovirus with case fatality rates of 25–90%, ongoing in the DRC
• H5N1 Bird Flu — avian influenza with pandemic potential, sporadic human cases
• Mpox — poxvirus that caused a global outbreak in 2022, still active in Africa
• Chikungunya — mosquito-borne togavirus causing severe joint pain
• Nipah — bat-borne paramyxovirus with 40–75% fatality, recurrent in South Asia
• Zika — flavivirus linked to microcephaly in newborns, 2015–2016 Americas epidemic

Data Sources

We use only primary or highly reliable secondary sources. Every data point on VirusWatch can be traced back to one of the following:

Editorial Methodology

Disease inclusion criteria. A pathogen is added to VirusWatch when (a) there is an active outbreak tracked by the WHO or a regional CDC, (b) the disease has caused a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) in the past decade, or (c) it represents a credible spillover threat actively monitored by national agencies. We do not add diseases for traffic or topical interest alone.

Data freshness. COVID-19 totals are fetched hourly from disease.sh (which itself refreshes from WHO and Johns Hopkins approximately every 30 minutes). Malaria, Tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, Measles, and Hepatitis B are fetched hourly from the WHO Global Health Observatory and reflect the latest published annual estimates. The remaining 14 diseases (Dengue, Ebola, H5N1, Mpox, Chikungunya, Nipah, Zika, Cholera, Rabies, Yellow Fever, Typhoid, Hantavirus, Plague, Marburg) display WHO-published baseline figures — no public global real-time API exists for these; baselines are updated manually when WHO publishes new official data. News feeds from WHO, CDC, ECDC and PAHO are fetched and cached every 30 minutes. Disease page clinical content is reviewed and updated manually when WHO or CDC issues a major revision to its factsheet or situation report.

Statistical figures. Case counts, death tolls, R₀ values, and case fatality rates are sourced from the most recent WHO situation reports or CDC summaries. Where ranges are given, we reflect the published range. Historical figures (e.g. total deaths from the 2014–2016 Ebola outbreak) are taken from peer-reviewed sources and cited inline.

What we don't do. We do not write original news stories, we do not aggregate social media, we do not republish unverified reports, and we do not include commentary or opinion. Every headline in the News section is pulled unedited from an official RSS feed.

Medical disclaimer. VirusWatch is not a healthcare provider. Nothing on this site constitutes medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Content is for educational purposes only. If you are unwell, contact a licensed physician. In an emergency, call your local emergency number.

The Team

VirusWatch is built and maintained by a small independent team of developers, designers, and public health enthusiasts who believe that open data should be open to everyone — not just those with institutional access or technical backgrounds.

We are not scientists, we are not epidemiologists, and we are not a medical organization. We are communicators who care about getting accurate public health information into the hands of ordinary people as quickly and clearly as possible.

If you have a correction, a question about our methodology, a data issue, or a partnership proposal, please reach out:

[email protected]

Support VirusWatch

VirusWatch is free, ad-free, and has no paywall. We do not sell your data. We rely entirely on voluntary contributions to cover hosting costs, API usage fees, and the time it takes to maintain the site.

If you find this site useful and want to help keep it running, a small one-time donation makes a real difference. There is no subscription, no upsell, and no follow-up emails.