Currently, large-scale infectious diseases, especially respiratory infectious diseases, remain a significant threat to the shared future of humanity. As designated by WHO, Disease X will inevitably emerge at some point in the future and in some location. To address this critical threat, it is essential to establish a technical system with early warning capabilities and international situational awareness. This project aims to address major needs in China, including limited monitoring sources, inadequate early warning technologies, and the lack of scientific evaluation for intervention strategies. By fully integrating expertise from fields such as epidemiology, public health, mathematics, artificial intelligence, and engineering sciences, we seek to develop a comprehensive system for the prediction and early warning of large-scale respiratory infectious diseases. This system will combine macro- and micro-level perspectives through the construction of a multi-source data monitoring network and the innovative development of artificial intelligence-based prediction and early warning models. It will enable accurate predictions of epidemic trends, overall scale, and cycles. The outcomes of this project have been applied in over 16 provinces and cities across Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing strong technical support for epidemic prevention and control efforts.

Fig1 DiXcovery = Disease X Discovery: Cover image of the CCDC Weekly journal

Fig 2 Intelligent Prediction and Early Warning Visualization System for Large-Scale Epidemics