WHO Disease Outbreak News Monitor

🦠 WHO Disease Outbreak News Monitor is a powerful Apify Actor designed to discover, track, and collect official Disease Outbreak News (DON) notices directly from the World Health Organization's public API. This tool provides comprehensive WHO Disease Outbreak intelligence including notice titles, summaries, publication dates, and direct links. Whether you're monitoring global health security, tracking emerging outbreaks, or conducting epidemiological research, the WHO Disease Outbreak News Monitor delivers actionable WHO Disease Outbreak insights efficiently.

With direct WHO API integration, keyword filtering, and reliable Apify Dataset delivery, the WHO Disease Outbreak News Monitor ensures consistent WHO Disease Outbreak discovery straight from the source. It focuses on key WHO Disease Outbreak signals including notice title, summary, publication date, and official link, making it an essential tool for global health monitoring and outbreak intelligence.

---

📋 Table of Contents

• Features
• Data Source
• How It Works
• Input
• Output
• Technical Stack
• Data Fields
• Use Cases
• Quick Start
• Configuration
• Performance
• Billing
• Important Notes
• Changelog
• Support
• License & Legal

---

🔥 Features

• WHO API Integration – Direct, key-less integration with the WHO's official Disease Outbreak News API.
• Keyword Filtering – Filter WHO Disease Outbreak notices by title keyword, applied both server-side and client-side.
• Override Title Handling – Correctly resolves WHO's override-title logic for accurate headlines.
• Automatic Summary Fallback – Falls back to a cleaned overview excerpt when no summary is provided.
• HTML-Cleaned Content – Strips HTML tags from overview text used as a summary fallback.
• Sorted by Recency – Requests notices ordered by publication date, newest first.
• Configurable Result Cap – Limit the number of notices returned per run.
• Direct Notice Links – Automatically builds full URLs to each official WHO notice.
• Residential Proxy Support – Apify residential proxy for reliable, uninterrupted access.
• Real-Time Dataset Push – Pushes results to Apify Dataset immediately after extraction.
• Detailed Logging – Comprehensive logging of fetch progress and result counts.
• Asyncio-Friendly – Non-blocking async/await architecture with httpx.
• Graceful Error Handling – Logs clear errors for failed requests or malformed responses.

---

📊 Data Source

WHO Disease Outbreak News (DON) API

• Authority: Official World Health Organization OData API
• Endpoint: www.who.int/api/news/diseaseoutbreaknews
• Coverage: Official WHO Disease Outbreak News notices worldwide
• Data: Notice ID, title, summary/overview, publication date, direct link
• Access: Public, key-less OData endpoint
• Update Frequency: As WHO publishes new outbreak notices

---

⚙️ How It Works

The WHO Disease Outbreak News Monitor queries the WHO's official OData API directly, requesting notices ordered by publication date with an optional server-side title filter. Each returned notice is normalized — resolving WHO's override-title logic, extracting or falling back to a cleaned summary, and constructing a full notice URL from the relative path provided by the API. A client-side keyword check is also applied as a safeguard. Matching notices are pushed to the Apify Dataset in a single batch.

Key Processing Steps:

1. Input Parsing – Accept keyword filter and max notices to return
2. Proxy Setup – Configure Apify residential proxy
3. API Query – Request notices from the WHO DON API, sorted by recency
4. Title Resolution – Apply WHO's override-title logic to get the correct headline
5. Keyword Filtering – Match title against the keyword filter
6. Summary Extraction – Use the provided summary, or fall back to a cleaned overview excerpt
7. HTML Stripping – Clean any HTML from the overview fallback
8. Link Construction – Build a full URL from the notice's relative path
9. Dataset Push – Push matching notices in a single batch
10. Summary Logging – Report total notices found

Key Benefits:

• Stay current on WHO Disease Outbreak notices as they're officially published
• Monitor emerging outbreaks by disease, region, or keyword
• Build a searchable archive of official WHO outbreak communications
• Support epidemiological research and global health situational awareness
• Automate recurring outbreak monitoring runs

---

📥 Input

The Actor accepts the following input parameters:

Field	Type	Default	Description
keyword	string	""	Filter WHO Disease Outbreak notices by keyword found in the title
max_notices	integer	50	Maximum number of notices to return
useApifyProxy	boolean	true	Enable Apify residential proxies
apifyProxyGroups	array	["RESIDENTIAL"]	Proxy group configuration

Example Input:

{
  "keyword": "cholera",
  "max_notices": 25
}

Fetch All Recent Notices, No Filter:

{
  "max_notices": 50
}

---

📤 Output

The Actor pushes WHO Disease Outbreak records with the following structure:

Field	Type	Description
notice_id	string	Unique WHO Disease Outbreak News identifier
title	string	Resolved notice title
summary	string	Notice summary or cleaned overview excerpt
link	string	Direct URL to the official WHO notice
publication_date	string	Date and time the notice was published
scraped_at	string	ISO 8601 timestamp of when the notice was scraped

Example WHO Disease Outbreak Record:

{
  "notice_id": "DON512",
  "title": "Cholera – Democratic Republic of the Congo",
  "summary": "WHO is monitoring an increase in cholera cases reported across multiple provinces since early July 2026.",
  "link": "https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease-outbreak-news/item/2026-DON512",
  "publication_date": "2026-07-20T10:00:00Z",
  "scraped_at": "2026-07-29T08:00:00+00:00"
}

---

🧰 Technical Stack

• API: WHO Disease Outbreak News OData API
• HTTP Client: httpx for async HTTP requests
• Query Building: OData $orderby, $top, and $filter parameters
• Text Cleaning: regex for HTML tag stripping
• Date Handling: datetime with timezone-aware UTC timestamps
• Async: asyncio for non-blocking operations
• Proxy: Apify Proxy with RESIDENTIAL configuration
• Logging: Apify Actor logging system
• Platform: Apify Actor serverless environment

---

📊 Data Fields Explained

Notice Identification

• notice_id: Unique identifier for the outbreak notice
• title: Resolved headline of the notice
• link: Direct link to the official WHO notice page

Content

• summary: Notice summary or fallback overview excerpt

Timing

• publication_date: When WHO published the notice
• scraped_at: When the Actor captured the notice

---

🎯 Use Cases

• Global Health Security Monitoring – Track WHO Disease Outbreak notices as they're published
• Epidemiological Research – Build a dataset of official outbreak communications over time
• Travel & Risk Advisory – Inform travel or operational risk decisions with the latest outbreak data
• Pharma & Public Health Intelligence – Watch for outbreaks relevant to specific diseases or regions
• Journalism – Source fresh, official outbreak updates for reporting
• NGO & Humanitarian Response – Stay alert to emerging health crises in areas of operation
• Academic Research – Study outbreak frequency, geography, and reporting patterns

---

🚀 Quick Start

1. Prepare Input

Go to Apify Console and enter:

{
  "keyword": "Ebola",
  "max_notices": 20
}

2. Run the Actor

Click Start. The Actor will:

• Query the WHO Disease Outbreak News API
• Resolve titles and summaries for each notice
• Filter by keyword if provided
• Push results to the Dataset

3. Monitor Progress

Console shows:

Initializing WHO Disease Outbreak Monitor. Keyword filter: 'Ebola'
[WHO DON API] Fetching updates from: https://www.who.int/api/news/diseaseoutbreaknews
Done! Successfully saved 4 outbreak notices to Apify Dataset.

4. View & Download Results

• Results Tab: All WHO Disease Outbreak records
• Export: JSON, CSV, Excel, or HTML
• API Access: Available via the Apify API

---

⚙️ Configuration

No filter, most recent notices:

{
  "max_notices": 50
}

Keyword-focused search:

{
  "keyword": "measles",
  "max_notices": 15
}

---

📈 Performance

Processing Speed

• Single API request per run
• Fast in-memory title/summary resolution
• No pagination overhead — result count controlled via $top

Resource Usage

• Memory: Low, proportional to number of notices returned
• Network: One API request per run
• Proxy: One residential proxy session per run

---

💰 Billing

Batch Billing

• Billing Model: Batch push (not per-notice PPE)
• Typical Cost: Single operation per run
• Efficiency: Lightweight, low-resource processing

---

⚠️ Important Notes

Legal & Compliance

• Fair Use: Respects WHO's public API and rate limits
• Official Source: Pulls exclusively from WHO's official Disease Outbreak News API
• Accuracy: Data as published by WHO
• Verification: Always verify critical outbreak information against the original WHO notice
• Legal: Not medical or legal advice — consult qualified professionals for health decisions

Data Quality

• Freshness: Reflects the WHO API's data at time of run
• Completeness: Dependent on what WHO includes in the API response
• Accuracy: Sourced directly from WHO's official API
• Verification: Cross-check time-sensitive notices against the live WHO page

Best Practices

• Use keyword to focus on a specific disease or region
• Set max_notices to control run size during high-activity periods
• Re-run periodically to catch newly published outbreak notices
• Treat this as a monitoring aid, not a substitute for official WHO guidance
• No API key is required — the WHO DON API is publicly accessible

---

📦 Changelog

v1.0.0 (July 2026)

Initial Release:

• WHO Disease Outbreak News OData API integration
• Server-side and client-side keyword filtering
• Override-title resolution logic
• Automatic summary fallback with HTML stripping
• Configurable result cap via $top
• Full notice URL construction
• Apify residential proxy support
• Real-time Dataset push
• Detailed progress logging
• Asyncio + httpx async architecture

---

🧑‍💻 Support & Feedback

• Issues: Submit via Apify console with the keyword used
• Documentation: Check the Actor details page
• Community: Apify forum discussions
• Feature Requests: Suggest improvements
• Bug Reports: Include the keyword and error details

---

📄 License & Legal

Terms of Use:

• Use for legitimate health research and monitoring purposes
• Respect WHO's Terms of Service
• Don't republish full notices without permission
• Use data responsibly, and do not rely on it as a substitute for official WHO guidance

Disclaimer: WHO Disease Outbreak News Monitor is provided as-is for informational and research purposes. It is not medical advice. Users are responsible for compliance with WHO's ToS and should verify critical information against official WHO sources.

---

🎉 Get Started Today

Deploy now for WHO Disease Outbreak research!

Use for:

• 📊 Global Health Monitoring
• 🔍 Outbreak Tracking
• 💡 Epidemiological Research
• 📈 Risk & Travel Advisory
• 🎯 Public Health Intelligence

Perfect for:

• Public Health Researchers
• NGOs & Humanitarian Organizations
• Health Journalists
• Risk & Travel Advisory Teams

---

Last Updated: July 2026 Version: 1.0.0 Status: Production Ready Platform: Apify Actor Architecture: Async/Await Data Source: WHO Disease Outbreak News API

---

📚 Related Tools

• Clinical Guidelines & Health RSS Monitor
• Clinical Trial Aggregator
• Airport NOTAMs & Schedule Changes Monitor

---

⚖️ WHO Disease Outbreak Excellence

This Actor is optimized for WHO Disease Outbreak research with:

• ✅ Direct, key-less WHO API integration
• ✅ Accurate title resolution
• ✅ Automatic summary fallback
• ✅ Keyword filtering
• ✅ Real-time Dataset push
• ✅ Production-ready code