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ProMED-mail - the Program for Monitoring Emerging Diseases - is an Internet-based reporting system dedicated to rapid global dissemination of information on outbreaks of infectious diseases and acute exposures to toxins that affect human health, including those in animals and in plants grown for food or animal feed. Electronic communications enable ProMED-mail to provide up-to-date and reliable news about threats to human, animal, and food plant health around the world, seven days a week.

By providing early warning of outbreaks of emerging and re-emerging diseases, public health precautions at all levels can be taken in a timely manner to prevent epidemic transmission and to save lives.

ProMED-mail is open to all sources and free of political constraints. Sources of information include media reports, official reports, online summaries, local observers, and others. Reports are often contributed by ProMED-mail subscribers. A team of expert human, plant, and animal disease moderators screen, review, and investigate reports before posting to the network. Reports are distributed by email to direct subscribers and posted immediately on the ProMED-mail web site. ProMED-mail currently reaches over 40,000 subscribers in at least 185 countries.

A central purpose of ProMED-mail is to promote communication amongst the international infectious disease community, including scientists, physicians, epidemiologists, public health professionals, and others interested in infectious diseases on a global scale. ProMED-mail encourages subscribers to participate in discussions on infectious disease concerns, to respond to requests for information, and to collaborate together in outbreak investigations and prevention efforts. ProMED-mail also welcomes the participation of interested persons outside of the health and biomedical professions.

ProMED-mail was established in 1994 with the support of the Federation of American Scientists and SatelLife. Since October 1999, ProMED-mail has operated as an official program of the International Society for Infectious Diseases, a nonprofit professional organization with 20,000 members worldwide.

ProMED-mail is also available in Portuguese, ProMED-PORT, and in Spanish, ProMED-ESP. Both of these lists cover disease news and topics relevant to Portuguese- and Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America, respectively. ProMED-RUS offers Russian-language reports relevant to the independent states of the former Soviet Union. PRO/MBDS offers reports in English on countries in Southeast Asia bordering the Mekong river. Under a recent grant from Google.org, ProMED-mail is working to enlarge our networks in West Africa (ProMED-FRA) posted in French, and East Africa (ProMED-EAFR) posted in English.

ProMED-mail and ISID are grateful to Google.org, the Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Oracle Corporation, the Nuclear Threat Initiative, and many individual donors for financial support. Please consider a donation by clicking on the Donations link on the left.

Web services for ProMED-mail are provided as a public service by the Oracle Corporation. E-mail services are provided by the Harvard School of Public Health.