{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,15]],"date-time":"2026-10-15T05:40:29Z","timestamp":1792042829460,"version":"4.4.0"},"reference-count":19,"publisher":"Public Library of Science (PLoS)","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,1,25]],"date-time":"2023-01-25T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1674604800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100014895","name":"Open Philanthropy Project","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100014895","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/100000308","name":"Carnegie Corporation of New York","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100000308","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/100000308","name":"Carnegie Corporation of New York","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100000308","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.plosglobalpublichealth.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["PLOS Glob Public Health"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The World Health Organization (WHO) notifies the global community about disease outbreaks through the Disease Outbreak News (DON). These online reports tell important stories about both outbreaks themselves and the high-level decision making that governs information sharing during public health emergencies. However, they have been used only minimally in global health scholarship to date. Here, we collate all 2,789 of these reports from their first use through the start of the Covid-19 pandemic (January 1996 to December 2019), and develop an annotated database of the subjective and often inconsistent information they contain. We find that these reports are dominated by a mix of persistent worldwide threats (particularly influenza and cholera) and persistent epidemics (like Ebola virus disease in Africa or MERS-CoV in the Middle East), but also document important periods in history like the anthrax bioterrorist attacks at the turn of the century, the spread of chikungunya and Zika virus to the Americas, or even recent lapses in progress towards polio elimination. We present three simple vignettes that show how researchers can use these data to answer both qualitative and quantitative questions about global outbreak dynamics and public health response. However, we also find that the retrospective value of these reports is visibly limited by inconsistent reporting (e.g., of disease names, case totals, mortality, and actions taken to curtail spread). We conclude that sharing a transparent rubric for which outbreaks are considered reportable, and adopting more standardized formats for sharing epidemiological metadata, might help make the DON more useful to researchers and policymakers.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pgph.0001083","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,1,25]],"date-time":"2023-01-25T13:26:03Z","timestamp":1674653163000},"page":"e0001083","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pgph.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":29,"title":["The World Health Organization\u2019s Disease Outbreak News: A retrospective database"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"3","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6960-8434","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Colin J.","family":"Carlson","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6224-9755","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Matthew R.","family":"Boyce","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-0664-8954","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Margaret","family":"Dunne","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Ellie","family":"Graeden","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9508-4865","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Jessica","family":"Lin","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yasser Omar","family":"Abdellatif","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Max A.","family":"Palys","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2692-5007","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Munir","family":"Pavez","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Alexandra L.","family":"Phelan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7596-431X","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Rebecca","family":"Katz","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,1,25]]},"reference":[{"key":"pgph.0001083.ref001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"896","DOI":"10.4269\/ajtmh.20-1318","article-title":"Identifying Nontraditional Epidemic Disease Risk Factors Associated with Major Health Events from World Health Organization and World Bank Open Data","volume":"105","author":"R Lugo-Robles","year":"2021","journal-title":"Am J Trop Med Hyg"},{"key":"pgph.0001083.ref002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"315","DOI":"10.1186\/s12916-020-01767-8","article-title":"The practice of evaluating epidemic response in humanitarian and low-income settings: a systematic review.","volume":"18","author":"A Warsame","year":"2020","journal-title":"BMC Med"},{"key":"pgph.0001083.ref003","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"e001157","DOI":"10.1136\/bmjgh-2018-001157","article-title":"Assessing global preparedness for the next pandemic: development and application of an Epidemic Preparedness Index","volume":"4","author":"B Oppenheim","year":"2019","journal-title":"BMJ Glob Health"},{"key":"pgph.0001083.ref004","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"21701","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.1006219107","article-title":"Global capacity for emerging infectious disease detection","author":"EH Chan","year":"2010","journal-title":"Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences"},{"key":"pgph.0001083.ref005","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1184","DOI":"10.3201\/eid1807.120249","article-title":"Timeliness of nongovernmental versus governmental global outbreak communications","volume":"18","author":"L Mondor","year":"2012","journal-title":"Emerg Infect Dis"},{"key":"pgph.0001083.ref006","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"990","DOI":"10.1038\/nature06536","article-title":"Global trends in emerging infectious diseases","volume":"451","author":"KE Jones","year":"2008","journal-title":"Nature"},{"key":"pgph.0001083.ref007","article-title":"Global rise in human infectious disease outbreaks","author":"KF Smith","year":"2014","journal-title":"Journal of The Royal Society Interface"},{"key":"pgph.0001083.ref008","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2864","DOI":"10.1098\/rstb.2011.0354","article-title":"Human viruses: discovery and emergence","volume":"367","author":"M Woolhouse","year":"2012","journal-title":"Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci"},{"key":"pgph.0001083.ref009","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1337","DOI":"10.1038\/s41564-019-0435-4","article-title":"The global distribution of Bacillus anthracis and associated anthrax risk to humans, livestock and wildlife","volume":"4","author":"CJ Carlson","year":"2019","journal-title":"Nat Microbiol"},{"key":"pgph.0001083.ref010","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1813","DOI":"10.1111\/brv.12420","article-title":"Spores and soil from six sides: interdisciplinarity and the environmental biology of anthrax (Bacillus anthracis).","volume":"93","author":"CJ Carlson","year":"2018","journal-title":"Biol Rev Camb Philos Soc"},{"key":"pgph.0001083.ref011","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"490","DOI":"10.1258\/jrsm.2011.110230","article-title":"How are we going to rebuild public health in Libya?","volume":"104","author":"R Sullivan","year":"2011","journal-title":"J R Soc Med"},{"key":"pgph.0001083.ref012","article-title":"COVID-19 in a shattered health system: Case of Libya","author":"GC Iwendi","year":"2021","journal-title":"Journal of Global Health"},{"key":"pgph.0001083.ref013","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2109","DOI":"10.1016\/S0140-6736(21)01897-3","article-title":"How an outbreak became a pandemic: a chronological analysis of crucial junctures and international obligations in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic","author":"S Singh","year":"2021","journal-title":"The Lancet"},{"key":"pgph.0001083.ref014","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"e0007428","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pntd.0007428","article-title":"Estimating undetected Ebola spillovers","volume":"13","author":"EE Glennon","year":"2019","journal-title":"PLoS Negl Trop Dis"},{"key":"pgph.0001083.ref015","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"612","DOI":"10.1038\/nature23660","article-title":"Erratum: Host and viral traits predict zoonotic spillover from mammals","volume":"548","author":"KJ Olival","year":"2017","journal-title":"Nature"},{"key":"pgph.0001083.ref016","article-title":"Syndromic detectability of haemorrhagic fever outbreaks.","author":"EE Glennon","year":"2020","journal-title":"bioRxiv. medRxiv"},{"key":"pgph.0001083.ref017","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"e0007571","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pntd.0007571","article-title":"Detection of Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic Fever cases in a severe undifferentiated febrile illness outbreak in the Federal Republic of Sudan: A retrospective epidemiological and diagnostic cohort study","volume":"13","author":"H Bower","year":"2019","journal-title":"PLoS Negl Trop Dis"},{"key":"pgph.0001083.ref018","first-page":"8","article-title":"Using electronic links for monitoring diseases","volume":"50","author":"J. Dzenowagis","year":"1997","journal-title":"World Health"},{"key":"pgph.0001083.ref019","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"215","DOI":"10.1089\/hs.2016.0069","article-title":"Finding Outbreaks Faster.","volume":"15","author":"MS Smolinski","year":"2017","journal-title":"Health Secur"}],"container-title":["PLOS Global Public Health"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/dx.plos.org\/10.1371\/journal.pgph.0001083","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2023,3,6]],"date-time":"2023-03-06T14:18:42Z","timestamp":1678112322000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/dx.plos.org\/10.1371\/journal.pgph.0001083"}},"subtitle":[],"editor":[{"given":"Claudio A.","family":"Mendez","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"editor"}]}],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2023,1,25]]},"references-count":19,"journal-issue":{"issue":"1","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,1,25]]}},"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pgph.0001083","relation":{"has-preprint":[{"id-type":"doi","id":"10.1101\/2022.03.22.22272790","asserted-by":"object"}]},"ISSN":["2767-3375"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2767-3375","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2023,1,25]]}}}