To update the current state of knowledge on event-based Internet biosurveillance systems by identifying all systems, including current functionality, with hopes to aid decision makers with whether to incorporate new methods into comprehensive programmes of surveillance.
A systematic review was performed through PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar databases, while also including grey literature and other publication types.
50 event-based Internet systems were identified, including an extraction of 15 attributes for each system, described in 99 articles. Each system uses different innovative technology and data sources to gather data, process, and disseminate data to detect infectious disease outbreaks.
The review emphasises the importance of using both formal and informal sources for timely and accurate infectious disease outbreak surveillance, cataloguing all event-based Internet biosurveillance systems. By doing so, future researchers will be able to use this review as a library for referencing systems, with hopes of learning, building, and expanding Internet-based surveillance systems. Event-based Internet biosurveillance should act as an extension of traditional systems, to be utilised as an additional, supplemental data source to have a more comprehensive estimate of disease burden.