Hantavirus Live Tracker Comparison: HORIZON vs Competitors (2026)
How does HORIZON compare to other live hantavirus trackers? This page gives a factual, source-cited comparison of every publicly accessible hantavirus surveillance site as of May 2026 — hantavirus.live, hanta-live.com, hantaviruslive.com, hantaviruslivemap.com, and hantavirustracker.io — against HORIZON on the criteria that matter for public-health, clinical, and research use.
Summary
HORIZON aggregates 65+ authoritative sources — WHO Disease Outbreak News, CDC HAN, ECDC CDTR, PAHO Epidemiological Alerts, national health ministries (Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Germany, Sweden, Finland), peer-reviewed literature (Europe PMC, bioRxiv, medRxiv), wire services (Reuters, AP, AFP, BBC Health), ProMED, and ecological indicators (NOAA ENSO, NASA NDVI) — and applies the NATO Admiralty Scale (STANAG 2511) to every ingested record. Case counts are drawn exclusively from authoritative confirmed-case publications, not from media volume.
The five competing sites:
- hantavirustracker.io — a live map and news timeline site targeting "2026 Hantavirus Outbreak Tracker" keyword cluster. Aggregates WHO/CDC data and public news. No published methodology, no source registry, no open data licence, no API.
- hantaviruslivemap.com — an interactive map site using ArcGIS and the public ANDV dataset (the same Oxford Kraemer Lab data HORIZON ingests). Adds AIS ship tracking for MV Hondius. Counts include a large "monitoring" category (88% of total) that is not the same as confirmed cases.
- hantavirus.live — a Czech-operated aggregator (hantaflow.com) that tracks media reporting frequency. Coverage is based on open news feeds.
- hanta-live.com — a news-signal aggregator. Explicitly states on its site that displayed counts reflect media reporting volume, not laboratory-confirmed case counts. Updates every 5 minutes from public news feeds.
- hantaviruslive.com — a self-described independent educational site that draws from WHO situation reports and Oceanwide Expeditions communications. Explicitly "for educational purposes only."
Key facts before reading the table
- hantaviruslivemap.com "173 total cases" includes 152 in a "monitoring" category (88%). These are not confirmed or suspected cases. Confirmed and suspected combined are 15 (8%). HORIZON tracks only confirmed/suspected from WHO DON 600 and national authority publications.
- hanta-live.com country counts reflect how many news articles mention a country, not how many laboratory-confirmed cases have been reported there. A single news story about one case can increment 20+ country counts.
- hantavirustracker.io draws from WHO/CDC/ECDC/PAHO but does not publish a source registry, methodology, data licence, or API. Case numbers are not independently verifiable.
Feature comparison
| Feature | HORIZON hantavirus.software |
hantavirus.live | hanta-live.com | hantaviruslive.com |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Data type | Confirmed cases from authoritative WHO/CDC/ECDC/PAHO publications | Media reporting volume — not confirmed case counts | Media reporting volume (explicitly stated on site) | Editorial summary for education; not case-count data |
| Source count | 65+ (WHO, CDC, ECDC, PAHO, national ministries, peer-reviewed, ProMED, ecological) | ~1–3 (open news feeds / hantaflow) | ~1–3 (open news feeds) | WHO reports + Oceanwide Expeditions communications |
| Source qualification | NATO Admiralty Scale (A–F reliability, 1–6 credibility) on every record; published source registry | None stated | None stated | None stated |
| Free public API | Yes — JSON REST API + bulk NDJSON; no registration, no API key, CC BY 4.0; docs | No | No | No |
| Individual-level line list | Oxford Kraemer Lab MV Hondius ANDV line list: 28 columns per person, CC0, real-time ingest; details | No | No | No |
| Genomic reference layer | HantaNet — complete NCBI RefSeq Orthohantavirus genome set; S/M/L segments for all major serotypes | No | No | No |
| Serotype coverage | All 12 major Orthohantavirus serotypes: ANDV, SNV, PUUV, HTNV, SEOV, DOBV, BAYV, BCCV, LANV, CHOV, SAAV, TULV | ANDV-focused (MV Hondius) | ANDV-focused | Primarily ANDV / MV Hondius cluster |
| Historic coverage | 1993–present (Four Corners outbreak origin to live) | Recent reports only | Recent reports only | Limited historic context |
| Open data licence | CC BY 4.0 — free to download, republish, and use in research with attribution | Not stated | Not stated | Not stated |
| Update frequency | Automated 15-minute ingest cycle; authoritative counts updated as WHO/CDC/PAHO publish | Variable / unknown | Variable / unknown | Manual / infrequent |
| Methodology published | Yes — full methodology page: NATO Admiralty Scale, ICD 206 source citations, Berkeley Protocol SHA-256 chain-of-custody, dual confidence model | No | No | No |
| Machine-readable metadata | DCAT-AP 3.0, CSL-JSON, CITATION.cff, Schema.org DataFeed, BioSchemas Dataset 1.1, OpenSearch XML | None | None | None |
| Suitable for research use | Yes — cite via CITATION.cff or CSL-JSON | Not appropriate — media volume ≠ case data | Not appropriate — media volume ≠ case data | Educational only — explicitly not for research/clinical use |
| Anti-duplication logic | Yes — prevents news-article cluster totals from inflating per-country confirmed counts | Not described | Not described | N/A |
Why "media volume" is not a case count
When a high-profile outbreak like the MV Hondius Andes virus cluster occurs, hundreds of news articles are published within days. A site counting news articles or news-feed events will show a spike that tracks media interest, not confirmed laboratory cases. The result:
- Counts inflate during high-profile events regardless of whether new cases have been confirmed
- Countries with large English-language media presence appear to have more cases than countries with equal burden but less coverage
- Historic trends reflect journalistic cycles, not epidemiological ones
- Numbers are not citable in clinical or research contexts
HORIZON uses only authoritative confirmed-case publications: WHO Disease Outbreak News (DON series), CDC Health Alert Network (HAN), ECDC Communicable Disease Threats Report (CDTR), PAHO Epidemiological Alerts, and peer-reviewed literature. Every number is traceable to its exact authoritative source. See the HORIZON methodology.
The MV Hondius cluster: where HORIZON has unique data
The 2026 MV Hondius Andes virus cluster (WHO DON 600, PAHO Alert 2026-03-25) is the highest-profile hantavirus event in years. All four sites cover it. HORIZON has capabilities the others do not:
- Oxford Kraemer Lab individual line list — 28-column per-person data (symptom onset, outcome, nationality, Pathoplexus genomic ID) maintained by Dr Moritz Kraemer (University of Oxford), Sam Scarpino, and Andrew Rambaut (University of Edinburgh / Nextstrain). No other public tracker integrates this dataset. Hosted at github.com/kraemer-lab/Hondius_hantavirus_h2026 under CC0 and ingested by HORIZON in real time.
- HantaNet Andes virus genomic reference — full ANDV S/M/L segments from NCBI RefSeq, cross-referenced to case records for direct provenance chains from human cases to genomic reference material.
- Anti-duplication logic — HORIZON tracks the 28 confirmed cases across the cluster as a single incident entity, preventing news-article inflation from misrepresenting the confirmed case toll.
Conclusion: which hantavirus live tracker should you use?
For public-health monitoring, clinical decision support, journalism, or research: use HORIZON. It is the only public hantavirus tracker with authoritative confirmed-case sourcing, a free open API, an individual-level line list, and a published methodology.
For general background reading about the MV Hondius cluster as a news story, hantaviruslive.com provides an educational summary (clearly labelled as such).
hantavirus.live and hanta-live.com are media-volume aggregators. They can indicate whether hantavirus is in the news, but their counts are not confirmed case counts and should not be cited as such.