How Hantavirus Tracker works
Hantavirus Tracker aggregates open news signals about hantavirus infection, geolocates each report to a country, and de-duplicates similar reports so the global map reflects unique stories rather than wire copies.
Data source
The upstream feed is hantaflow.com/api/signals.json, a continuously-updated JSON feed of hantavirus news signals licensed under CC BY 4.0. Each signal in the feed carries a source publication, a publication timestamp, an inferred country (ISO 3166-1 alpha-2), and a link back to the original report.
Refresh cadence
The site fetches the feed at most every five minutes and serves statically-generated pages with incremental revalidation. Counts on the home page and country pages reflect the state of the feed at the timestamp shown in each page footer.
Geolocation
Each signal is geolocated to a single country using the inference applied by the upstream feed. Signals without a confident country assignment are excluded from country pages and the map. When a single news story mentions multiple countries, the upstream feed picks the country of primary epidemiological relevance — usually the location of the reported cases rather than the publisher.
Deduplication
Signals are de-duplicated by URL and by near-identical headline so that wire-service reprints of the same underlying story do not inflate the count for a country. The signal that remains in the feed is the first observed copy.
What the counts mean
The counts shown on this site measure media reporting volume, not laboratory-confirmed case totals. A country with a high signal count is one that has attracted recent news coverage about hantavirus, not necessarily a country with a high incidence rate. For confirmed case counts, consult the national public health authority and the World Health Organization.
Limitations
- Media coverage is uneven across countries and languages. Quiet countries on this map may simply have less English-language hantavirus reporting, not fewer cases.
- The lag between an outbreak and a news signal varies by country and source; signals are a leading indicator, not a real-time case count.
- The feed cannot distinguish between confirmed cases, suspected cases, retrospective analyses, and general-interest coverage. Each signal links back to its source so you can read the original.
- This site is not a clinical diagnostic tool. For diagnosis, treatment, or exposure guidance, consult a qualified clinician or your national public health authority.