Disease Outbreak News Scraper

🦠 Track official disease outbreak news

Disease Outbreak News Scraper helps public-health teams, researchers, newsrooms, and travel-risk teams collect official alerts. It saves titles, dates, diseases, places, severity, report text, attachments, and source URLs in one dataset.

• Build a source-backed feed with Public Health Alerts.
• Follow new notices with CDC Outbreak Updates.
• Collect WHO reports with WHO Outbreak News.
• Filter official notices with Disease Outbreak Alerts.
• Make a clean feed of Outbreak News.
• Watch diseases and places with a Disease Outbreak Tracker.
• Save full reports with WHO Disease Outbreak News.
• Export official alerts with the Disease Outbreak News Scraper.

📊 Returned data

Each saved row is one official outbreak report, public-health alert, or disease-surveillance bulletin. It can include source facts, disease and place tags, a rule-based severity, WHO report sections, and direct attachment links. Missing facts stay empty or null; the Actor does not guess them.

Sources include WHO Disease Outbreak News, WHO news feeds, ECDC, CDC, PAHO, and CAHEC animal-disease bulletins.

▶️ Running the Actor

1. Open the Actor on Apify.
2. Pick one or more official sources, or add official page URLs.
3. Add filters only when you need them.
4. Set a work limit, or leave it empty to return all available results until the sources are exhausted.
5. Click Start. Open the dataset when the run ends.

🔎 Input

Field	Type	What it does
sourceFamilies	string array	Picks WHO DON, WHO news, ECDC, CDC, PAHO, or CAHEC sources.
startUrls	object array	Adds official outbreak, alert, archive, feed, or bulletin URLs. Each object needs a url.
diseaseKeywords	string array	Keeps rows that match the given diseases, hazards, countries, or source terms.
regions	string array	Keeps rows from the chosen source-backed WHO or geographic regions when available.
severity	string	Keeps High, Moderate, or Low rows. An empty value keeps any severity.
publishedFrom	date string	Keeps rows published on or after this date.
publishedTo	date string	Keeps rows published on or before this date.
maxItems	integer	Stops after this many matching rows. Leave it empty to return all available results until the sources are exhausted.

Default-input run:

{
  "sourceFamilies": [
    "who-don"
  ],
  "maxItems": 100,
  "regions": [],
  "severity": ""
}

📤 Output

Field	Type	What it does
source.name	string	Source page or feed name.
source.publisher	string	Official publisher.
source.id	string or null	Publisher's report, bulletin, article, or alert ID.
source.url	string	Official page URL.
title	string	Source headline or bulletin title.
publishedAt	string or null	Publication time in ISO 8601 format.
updatedAt	string or null	Update time in ISO 8601 format.
summary	string or null	Source summary or short lead.
diseases	string array	Diseases or outbreak subjects named by the source.
locations	string array	Affected places named by the source.
regions	string array	Broad source-backed regions.
species	string array	Affected species in animal-health rows.
severity	string or null	Source-backed or rule-based High, Moderate, or Low severity.
categories	string array	Source sections, alert types, or labels.
details.overview	string or null	Source overview.
details.epidemiology	string or null	Source epidemiology section.
details.assessment	string or null	Source risk assessment.
details.advice	string or null	Source public-health advice.
details.response	string or null	Source response section.
details.furtherInformation	string or null	Source further-information section.
details.bodyText	string or null	Article or bulletin text when named sections are not available.
attachments	object array	Source-hosted files.
attachments.title	string or null	Source file title.
attachments.url	string	Direct source file URL.

Genuine ECDC row from the current beta build:

{
  "source": {
    "name": "ECDC updates",
    "publisher": "European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control",
    "id": "andes-hantavirus-outbreak",
    "url": "https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/infectious-disease-topics/hantavirus-infection/surveillance-and-updates/andes-hantavirus-outbreak"
  },
  "title": "Andes hantavirus outbreak in cruise ship",
  "publishedAt": null,
  "updatedAt": null,
  "summary": null,
  "diseases": [
    "Andes hantavirus outbreak in cruise ship",
    "Andes hantavirus outbreak",
    "Outbreak"
  ],
  "locations": [
    "cruise ship"
  ],
  "regions": [],
  "species": [],
  "severity": "Moderate",
  "categories": [
    "Epidemiological update"
  ],
  "details": {
    "overview": null,
    "epidemiology": null,
    "assessment": null,
    "advice": null,
    "response": null,
    "furtherInformation": null,
    "bodyText": null
  },
  "attachments": []
}

The default Apify dataset can be downloaded as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, or HTML.

💰 Pricing

This Actor uses pay-per-event pricing. You pay for each accepted official outbreak report, public-health alert, or disease-surveillance bulletin saved to the dataset. Failed requests, skipped pages, empty runs, and runs with no matches are not charged as outbreak records.

🔌 Integrations

Use Apify Schedules to run checks often. Send dataset rows to webhooks, the Apify API, or supported integrations such as Google Sheets and Make.

❓ FAQ

Why are some fields null or empty?

Official sources do not publish every fact on every page. The Actor leaves missing facts blank instead of guessing.

How is severity set?

Severity comes from the source or a rule-based check of source text and categories. It stays null when there is not enough evidence.

Can I add a custom URL?

Yes. Add an official outbreak, alert, archive, feed, or bulletin URL. Unrelated and unofficial pages are outside this Actor's scope.

Can I collect old reports?

Yes. The Actor can collect historical reports that remain available from a supported source. Use date filters to narrow them.

📝 Changelog

• 1.0: Focused default runs on WHO Disease Outbreak News, added uncapped collection when no maximum is set, and improved source reliability and outbreak filtering.
• 0.1: Initial release.

🆘 Support

For issues, questions, or feature requests, file a ticket and I'll fix or implement it in less than 24h 🫡

🔗 Related Actors

• US Travel Advisories — Collect CDC travel health notices and U.S. State Department advisories.
• FDA Food Recall Monitor — Track official food recalls by product, firm, class, place, or date.
• WHO Disease Outbreak News Scraper: Global Health Alerts — Build a focused feed of WHO outbreak alerts.
• Disease Outbreak News Scraper — Collect WHO outbreak notices for public-health and travel-risk work.
• CAHEC China Animal Disease Surveillance Bulletin Scraper — Collect China animal-disease bulletins with disease, species, and region tags.

Made with ❤️ by Maxime Dupré