The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has launched an infectious disease data dashboard, which is intended to serve as a centralised source for infectious disease and outbreak data.

The tool will make data available in a timely and transparent way.

The dashboard will be updated every Thursday and will feature information on respiratory diseases including COVID-19; influenza (flu); respiratory syncytial virus (RSV; adenovirus; human metapneumovirus (hMPV); parainfluenza; rhinovirus.

In the future, the dashboard will be expanded to provide additional health security data, including data relating to incidents of public interest.

The new dashboard is still in development and builds on the success of the existing COVID-19 dashboard which, at the peak of the third lockdown, had a record 76.5 million hits in just 24 hours.

Professor Steven Riley, director general of data, analytics and surveillance at UKHSA, said: "The COVID-19 dashboard was a groundbreaking tool that demonstrated the public’s appetite to understand data and provided local and national decision-makers with crucial information that helped to inform response. It is vital we continue to provide this information in a timely and transparent way.

"While our new dashboard will initially focus on respiratory diseases, we will look to expand the information we publish constantly, and we would therefore appreciate your feedback on what you would like to see going forward.

"The winter of 2022 to 2023 highlighted the impact that dual threats such as COVID-19 and influenza can have, and so it’s vital that we make our surveillance data accessible."

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay