Could the World Cup cause the next pandemic? Scientists mapped the risks

This post is part of NGN Offside, a blog about the 2026 FIFA World Cup, powered by data science.

Spread across 11 U.S. host cities, the 2026 World Cup is bringing together teams and fans from 48 countries. From travel logistics to the accommodations for hundreds of thousands of visitors, organizers are addressing a host of considerations. For public health officials, one of those factors is also the spread of disease.

Disease surveillance has taken on a whole new meaning in the post-pandemic world. The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo may be the event commanding the most attention, but other outbreaks — both domestic and international — are also of concern. COVID-19 is still lingering, global health officials are still monitoring the hantavirus outbreak that rocked a cruise ship last month and here in the U.S., the country is seeing the largest number of measles cases since the disease was considered eradicated in the U.S. in 2000. Meanwhile, more common viruses and bacteria continue to impact our daily lives.

But how worried should you really be about catching any of these diseases at the World Cup?

Alessandro Vespignani, the director of Northeastern University’s Network Science Institute, whose work on tracking and predicting outbreaks is currently being used to monitor Ebola, has some words of advice: “Don’t panic, but don’t dismiss.”

The overall estimation is that the excess risk of any of these diseases spreading is “generally small,” Vespignani said. The U.S. is expected to get between 750,000 and 1.5 million more visitors during the World Cup, a fraction of the 10 million travelers that come to the U.S. during June and July on average.

But that doesn’t mean there’s zero risk posed by the World Cup, he cautioned.

Northeastern Global News, in your inbox.

Vespignani, along with Northeastern researchers Jessica Davis and Alessandra Urbinati and epidemiologist Justin Lessler, has developed a tool to assess the risk of the diseases most likely to be spread during the World Cup. There is an inherent risk of disease spreading, Vespignani said, but the tool assesses any excessive risk posed during the World Cup. The public can access their dashboard to see if their city is more at risk of certain diseases than others, but Vespignani hopes it is most valuable for public health organizations as they prepare to respond during the World Cup.

Eight countries with current dengue fever activity account for around 13 cases per month currently entering the U.S. The mosquito-borne virus presents one of the larger elevated risks of spreading during the World Cup, with cities like Atlanta, Miami and Dallas, presenting as greater targets because they are further south and home to more mosquitoes.

Dengue fever presents one of the larger elevated risks, while the measles and mumps face slight increases, and Seattle appears to be the safest host city, according to the dashboard.

The goal, Vespignani said, is to give healthcare professionals “situational awareness” and a sense of what they should, and should not, prepare for.

“This is what we call intelligence, and intelligence is always a way to play better against the enemy,” Vespignani said. “You are trying to be one step ahead of these pathogens and to administer resources better because resources are finite.”

The tool was created through Epistorm, the Northeastern-led disease forecasting and analytics project, in collaboration with the national research network Insight Net and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The researchers created a detailed risk assessment of 12 diseases: dengue fever, chikungunya, yellow fever, measles, pertussis, mumps, rubella, Mpox, Ebola, Marburg virus, cholera and typhoid.

The diseases that Vespignani said have the highest potential risk of spreading include the mosquito-borne viruses chikungunya and dengue fever and Lassa fever, a viral illness that usually causes mild symptoms like fever and fatigue but often goes undiagnosed, allowing it to spread more easily. But he noted these have a low probability of spreading during the event but are highly dangerous if they do.

COVID-19 is not even included in the tool because it is all but certain that there will be some cases, especially since some of the countries attending the World Cup are in the middle of their winter season. It’s also treatable and containable, Vespignani said, so it poses very little risk of developing into a bigger situation “unless we bring in some variant that we don’t know.”

While most of the diseases on the list tend to be endemic to developing nations, the team took a global look, Vespigniani said. It’s why the team also included measles, mumps, rubella and pertussis, as rates of those diseases are resurging because of declining vaccination rates in many industrialized nations.

Read more World Cup analysis on NGN Offside →

Similarly, measles is a lingering risk, since vaccination rates for the disease have dropped around the world, including in developed countries, he explained. New York/New Jersey, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Boston face the most elevation risk, but even then, it’s an extremely minor elevation. The U.S. has a probability of bringing in around one case of measles per month from the 16 countries listed as sources for the disease on the dashboard. World Cup activity is not estimated to increase the disease’s activity.

Measles remains a lingering risk, because vaccination rates for the disease have dropped around the world, including in developed countries. New York/New Jersey, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Boston face the most elevation risk, during the World Cup, though it is an extremely minor increase, the data shows.

Using the tool, which is updated live as outbreaks develop globally, people can see which diseases, if any, are likely to be circulating and what the risk of contagion might be. The researchers will also update the risk assessment as the competition progresses and the associated crowds thin out.

Risk evaluation is based on the number of disease cases brought into the U.S. on average and a projection of additional cases that could be imported based on additional travelers coming for the World Cup.

For example, eight countries with current dengue fever activity account for around 13 cases per month coming into the U.S. According to the dashboard, the World Cup could result in a nywhere between one and five additional cases per month. That’s an overall low risk, but it is information that locales like Miami, New York/New Jersey and Orlando, which face the greatest risk, can use to further prepare for the World Cup.

Rubella, pertussis and mumps are active in most countries (35, 23 and 18 countries, respectively), but the only disease with a probability of bringing even one case into the U.S. per month is mumps.

Each city has its own profile and environmental factors that make it more or less prone to certain diseases. Atlanta, Miami and Dallas, for example, have been flagged for elevated risk of diseases like dengue fever and chikungunya because they are further south and home to more mosquitoes.

Despite the increased risk, the number of additional cases will likely still be relatively small, Vespignani said. For instance, Miami, which is hosting seven World Cup matches, gets around four cases of dengue fever from abroad per month; the soccer event could raise that by a case or two, according to the data.

Overall, Seattle is projected to face the least increased risk of any U.S. city, with baseline disease importation levels for almost every disease already well below a single case. Even with the added foot traffic from the World Cup, the city has an excess risk of almost zero for nearly every disease, too, according to the data.

The World Cup is just getting underway, so the work that Vespignani and his team are doing is also just beginning. They will continue to update the tool to help healthcare professionals stay one step ahead, and they already hope to offer the same assistance during the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

“This is part of our effort to modernize the way that we can follow pathogens in the current hyper-connected world,” Vespignani said.