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Public Health & Epidemiology · Recorded milestone

Genomic pandemic surveillance

Recorded year2020

Labs sequence millions of SARS-CoV-2 genomes to track variants.

Explore this milestone on the interactive map

Built on

DNA fingerprinting of outbreaksRecorded · 1996enables
Next-gen sequencingRecorded · 2005enables
Cloud computingRecorded · 2006enables
Nanopore sequencingRecorded · 2014enables

Led to

Global pathogen early warningRecorded · 2022enables
Bird flu vaccine for US poultryRecorded · 2025enables
WHO Pandemic AgreementRecorded · 2025enables
Polio eradicatedForecast · ~2036enables
Animal-to-human spillover watchForecast · ~2048enables

Sources & evidence

Additional source

Dataset updated 2026-10-18. This individual record has not been separately re-reviewed.