Global Health Signals The quiet atlas of surveillance

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Data sources & licences

Every data source, what we use from it, the licence as verified, and suggested attribution — with open questions flagged. Licences were checked against the official pages on Oct 15, 2026; where a page is silent we write “not specified” rather than answer for it.

Data freshness

When each source was last retrieved successfully and how recent its newest data period is; anything beyond the source's normal update rhythm is marked “overdue”. Computed live in your browser against the current time — no site rebuild needed.

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SourceTypeLast successful retrievalNewest data periodStatus

WHO Disease Outbreak News (DON)

Used here
Only titles, dates and original links of the latest notices, for the event feed and event markers on the map. No body text is quoted.
Official pages
Licence
WHO publications: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO (per WHO's copyright policy). No WHO permission is needed for such use, but WHO publications must not be used to promote products or organisations, the WHO emblem must not be used, and adaptations must be indicated.
Attribution / citation

Copy-ready attribution text:

[Title]. Geneva: World Health Organization; [Year]. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.
Last retrieved
DON · Nov 2, 2026 · success

WHO datasets: COVID-19 dashboard and GHO indicators (data.who.int)

Used here
COVID-19 global daily data (→ ISO week); GHO indicators: reported cases of measles, rubella, diphtheria, pertussis and polio, reported cholera cases, estimated malaria cases.
Official pages
Licence
data.who.int datasets: CC BY 4.0 plus WHO's additional terms (attribute as in the metadata; do not imply WHO endorsement; do not use the WHO name or emblem). Terms of individual GHO indicators follow the WHO pages.
Attribution / citation

Copy-ready attribution text:

World Health Organization 2026 data.who.int, WHO COVID-19 dashboard [Dashboard]. https://data.who.int/dashboards/covid19 (Accessed on 2026-11-02)
World Health Organization {YEAR} data.who.int, {ITEM_NAME} [{ITEM_TYPE}]. {URL} (Accessed on {ACCESS DATE})
Last retrieved
COVID-19 · Nov 2, 2026 · successGHO · Oct 29, 2026 · stale

WHO FluNet (GISRS)

Used here
Global influenza laboratory detections and specimens tested (weekly, ISO week, all sample origins summed); used for the map, the seasonal fingerprint and country series.
Official pages
Licence
The FluNet page does not specify a licence (not specified). Handled under WHO's general website terms: attribute WHO/GISRS, imply no endorsement.
Attribution / citation

Copy-ready attribution text:

World Health Organization. FluNet, Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS). https://www.who.int/tools/flunet (accessed 2026-11-02). Figures re-aggregated and stitched by Global Health Signals; this is not a WHO product and WHO does not endorse it.
Last retrieved
FluNet · Nov 2, 2026 · success

ECDC: ERVISS and CDTR weekly reports

Used here
ERVISS: EU/EEA primary-care sentinel positivity for influenza/RSV/SARS-CoV-2 (from ISO week 40 of 2022); CDTR: weekly report titles, dates and links only.
Official pages
Licence
ECDC-owned content is CC BY 4.0 by default: acknowledge ECDC as creator, link to the CC BY 4.0 licence and indicate whether it was modified. Third-party data in ECDC databases must carry: “Dataset provided by ECDC based on data provided by public health authorities, scientific institutes or health care providers in the relevant reporting countries and/or by WHO.” The ECDC logo may not be used.
Attribution / citation

Copy-ready attribution text:

Data provided by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC): European Respiratory Virus Surveillance Summary (ERVISS), https://erviss.org/. Licence: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Modified: values re-formatted and stitched with other sources.
Dataset provided by ECDC based on data provided by public health authorities, scientific institutes or health care providers in the relevant reporting countries and/or by WHO.
Last retrieved
ERVISS · Nov 2, 2026 · success CDTR · Nov 2, 2026 · success

Our World in Data (OWID)

Used here
The OWID COVID-19 compact dataset is used only to cross-check WHO data (overlap agreement 99.92%); it fills no gaps at present (0 gap-fill weeks).
Official pages
Licence
Data produced by OWID is CC BY (credit OWID); data from third-party sources remains under the providers' terms, so the original sources must be credited as well.
Attribution / citation

Copy-ready attribution text:

Our World in Data (OWID), COVID-19 dataset, https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus. Licence: CC BY. Original data providers as credited by OWID.
Last retrieved
OWID · Nov 2, 2026 · success

US CDC NNDSS (data.cdc.gov)

Used here
NNDSS Weekly Data (dataset x9gk-5huc): provisional weekly case counts, national “US residents” basis.
Official pages
Licence
Most CDC website content is public domain (US government work): attribute CDC, state that CDC/HHS/the US government does not endorse you, do not change substantive content, and say the material is available free on the CDC website. The dataset metadata states no separate licence. Data are provisional and revised weekly.
Attribution / citation

Copy-ready attribution text:

Source: US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), NNDSS Weekly Data, https://data.cdc.gov/NNDSS/NNDSS-Weekly-Data/x9gk-5huc. Provisional data, revised weekly (retrieved 2026-11-01). CDC, HHS and the US government do not endorse this site; figures were reformatted. Available free on the CDC website.
Last retrieved
NNDSS · Nov 1, 2026 · success

Ebola (DR Congo 2026): COUSP-RDC / OCHA HDX, INRB-UMIE, ECDC, CDC

Used here
Primary data: the HDX “DR Congo – Ebola cases and deaths” consolidated CSV by COUSP-RDC (via OCHA DRC): national and health-zone cumulative confirmed cases and confirmed deaths (no suspected). INRB-UMIE is used only as a cross-check (its files are not republished). Imported cases and Uganda's status come from the ECDC, CDC and WHO AFRO pages, verified by hand and stored in a small static file with dates and sources.
Official pages
Licence
HDX / COUSP-RDC: CC BY (attribution, indicate changes). INRB-UMIE GitHub repository: MIT (Copyright © 2026 Kraemer Lab, University of Oxford); its README says the epidemiological data are preliminary work in progress and asks anyone using them before the team's publication to contact INRB/INSP — we rely on the HDX CC BY dataset and use INRB only as a cross-check. ECDC: CC BY 4.0 by default. CDC: US government agency material (public domain); CDC and the US government do not endorse this site.
Attribution / citation

Copy-ready attribution text:

Data: COUSP-RDC via OCHA HDX (CC BY); INRB-UMIE (MIT); ECDC (CC BY 4.0)
COUSP-RDC (via OCHA DRC). République démocratique du Congo : Cas et Décès d'Ebola. Humanitarian Data Exchange, https://data.humdata.org/dataset/republique-democratique-du-congo-cas-et-deces-d-ebola. Licence: CC BY. Accessed 2026-11-02. Modified: confirmed series only, re-formatted; weekly increments derived by Global Health Signals.
INRB-UMIE, BDBV2026-Data, https://github.com/INRB-UMIE/BDBV2026-Data. Licence: MIT (Copyright (c) 2026 Kraemer Lab, University of Oxford). Used for cross-checking only.
European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, Ebola disease outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/ebola-outbreak-democratic-republic-congo-and-uganda (page updated 14 October 2026). Licence: CC BY 4.0. Figures read by hand on 2026-10-15; modified: re-formatted.
Last retrieved
HDX COUSP-RDC · Nov 2, 2026 · successINRB-UMIE · Nov 2, 2026 · successECDC · Oct 15, 2026 · manual

OpenDengue

Used here
OpenDengue V1.3 national dengue case counts (disease page map and table).
Official pages
Licence
Figshare V1.3 record: CC BY 4.0; the paper: CC BY-SA (adaptations shared under the same terms). The two disagree; flagged above.
Attribution / citation

Copy-ready attribution text:

Clarke J, Lim A, Gupte P, Pigott DM, van Panhuis WG, Brady OJ. A global dataset of publicly available dengue case count data. Sci Data. 2024 Mar 14;11(1):296.
Clarke J, Lim A, Gupte P, Pigott DM, van Panhuis WG, Brady OJ. OpenDengue: data from the OpenDengue database. Version 1.3. figshare; 2025. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24259573
Last retrieved
OpenDengue · Nov 2, 2026 · success

Natural Earth (map outline)

Used here
Natural Earth 1:110m land polygons, heavily simplified (small islands, lakes and country borders left out), used as the continent outline behind the dot maps.
Official pages
Licence
Public domain: Natural Earth states its data is public domain and free to use for any purpose without attribution; we credit it anyway.
Attribution / citation

Copy-ready attribution text:

Made with Natural Earth. Free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com. 1:110m land polygons, heavily simplified by Global Health Signals.

Re-publishing derived data

This site cleans, standardises, aggregates to weeks/years, stitches and normalises source data. The resulting compilation of derived data and slices (the JSON under public/data) is released non-commercially under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. When reusing it, also credit each source as required and state that the data were modified. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 covers only this site's processing layer and does not change the licences of the upstream data; where a source's terms are stricter or incompatible, the source's terms prevail. Why 4.0: the CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO licence can only be used by intergovernmental organisations, and WHO's copyright page states that adaptations of its works must be licensed under the “same or similar licence terms”, naming CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 and CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 as similar licences that may be used.

This site is not affiliated with the World Health Organization (WHO) and implies no WHO endorsement of the site, its uses or its analyses. It does not use the WHO name as a mark of its own and does not use the WHO emblem.

Exception: values derived from OpenDengue are not covered by the CC BY-NC-SA grant above and keep OpenDengue's own terms; because its licence is stated inconsistently (CC BY vs CC BY-SA), we handle it conservatively as share-alike. Third-party copyright material is outside the grant.

This is a non-commercial project: no ads and no analytics trackers.

Apache-2.0 applies to the code only (see LICENSE in the repository), not to data, event titles and links, or third-party material. “Not explicitly forbidden” is not a licence: every use must follow the terms of the source concerned.

Figures derived from WHO data are an adaptation of original work by WHO: this adaptation was not created by WHO, WHO is not responsible for its content or accuracy, and the original edition remains the binding and authentic edition.

Modification notice: the numbers shown here are reformatted, aggregated (weekly/yearly), stitched across sources and normalised versions of the source data, not data as published by the source agencies.

Open questions

  1. To confirm WHO FluNet: the FluNet page states no data licence; its footer only links to the WHO website terms. We attribute under WHO's general terms and stay non-commercial with no implied endorsement.
  2. To confirm WHO data terms differ by entry point: data.who.int datasets are CC BY 4.0 plus additional WHO terms; the older who.int terms for data compilations are stricter (public-health purposes, only minimal alteration of figures). We take the conservative reading: non-commercial, attributed, meaning unchanged, no endorsement implied.
  3. To confirm OpenDengue: the Figshare V1.3 record and the opendengue.org footer say CC BY 4.0, but the 2024 Sci Data paper says “CC BY-SA; adaptations must be shared under the same terms”. Until the authors clarify, we treat it conservatively as CC BY-SA.
  4. To confirm ECDC ERVISS: the ERVISS GitHub repository carries an EUPL-1.2 licence file and its README gives no separate data licence; ECDC's copyright page says its web content is CC BY 4.0 by default. We attribute per the ECDC copyright page and note modifications.
  5. To confirm WHO DON: DON pages carry no separate licence line; we rely on WHO's copyright policy (“WHO publications are CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO”) and show only titles, dates and links.
  6. To confirm Ebola: HDX is largely consolidated from the INRB-UMIE files, so the two are not independent; health-zone deaths and ECDC provincial deaths do not add up to the national total; Uganda's “declared over” date differs between WHO AFRO (27 Aug) and the ECDC page (25 Aug); Kenya has 2 cases on the CDC page while the ECDC text describes 1. We list these differences as they are.