Who runs it
Outbreak Files is run by Ari Nakos, an independent developer. It is not affiliated with WHO, any government or any health agency, and it is not an official public health resource. It exists to put the current figures for each outbreak in one place, each tied to the source it came from, and to keep that record after the news moves on.
Where the data comes from
| Layer | Entered | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Headline totals | Automatically, twice a day | Each outbreak’s Wikipedia infobox, which cites the health ministries and WHO. Every reading links to the exact revision it came from. |
| Milestones, country tables and summaries | By hand | Official situation reports, each with its source. |
| News items | Automatically, from feeds | WHO and news feeds. Where a summary is written automatically, it is a pointer to the original article, not a finding of ours. |
How each layer is checked, how reporting lag is handled and how outbreaks are ranked is on the Methodology page.
Corrections
If a figure, date or source looks wrong, please open an issue on GitHub with a link to the page and to the source you think is right. Corrections to hand-entered data are made in the open, in the public history of the repository, so every change can be seen.
Reusing the data
The figures are free to reuse under CC BY-SA 4.0, through a keyless JSON and CSV API described on the Data & API page. The code that collects and checks them is public on GitHub.