ArticleEmerging infectious diseases2025
Global Epidemiology of Outbreaks of Unknown Cause Identified by Open-Source Intelligence, 2020-2022.
Article in Emerging infectious diseases, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Public health preparedness in times of regional crisis: lessons from Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean.European journal of public health · 2026Article
- Syndromic Surveillance-Review on Different Practices' Performance and Added Value for Public Health.Epidemiologia (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Review
- Collaborative Surveillance: Using a Minimum Set of Key Data Parameters for One Health Participatory Surveillance.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Epidemic surveillance using traditional approaches is dependent on case ascertainment and is delayed. Open-source intelligence (OSINT)-based syndromic surveillance can overcome limitations of delayed surveillance and poor case ascertainment, providing early warnings to guide outbreak response. It can identify outbreaks of unknown cause for which no other global surveillance exists. Using the artificial intelligence-based OSINT early warning system EPIWATCH, we describe the global epidemiology of 310 outbreaks of unknown cause that occurred December 31, 2019-January 1, 2023. The outbreaks were associated with 75,968 reported human cases and 4,235 deaths. We identified where OSINT signaled outbreaks earlier than official sources and before diagnoses were made. We identified possible signals of known disease outbreaks with poor case ascertainment. A cause was subsequently reported for only 14% of outbreaks analyzed; the percentage was substantially lower in lower/upper-middle-income economies than high-income economies, highlighting the utility of OSINT-based syndromic surveillance for early warnings, particularly in resource-poor settings.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.