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In today's around-the-clock news environment, recognition of — and response to — events seems to be faster than ever before. But is this the case for outbreaks of infectious diseases? To find out, researchers analyzed the entire WHO public record of Disease Outbreak News and catalogued selected WHO-verified outbreaks that occurred between 1996 and 2009.
During the study period, 398 WHO-confirmed outbreaks occurred; 281 of them had a definable start date and were included in the analysis. The illnesses most commonly reported were cholera (29%), yellow fever (12%), meningitis (9%), avian influenza (9%), and dengue (5%); the WHO geographic regions most commonly involved were Africa (53%), the eastern Mediterranean (11%), the western Pacific (11…