The disease detectives suiting up for the World Cup - Politico

Kaitlyn Bertolino, left, sets up a monitor while fellow nurse Nicholas Pena administers oxygen to a manikin during a NYC Health + Hospitals exercise at Bellevue Hospital in New York, on June 2, 2026. | Aristide Economopolous for POLITICO

LOS ANGELES — When the United States, Canada and Mexico formally submitted their co-hosting bid to soccer governing body FIFA in 2018, they touted the safety of the region, noting “ no major endemic infectious diseases across any of our Host Countries.”

Now, as the three countries prepare to welcome one of the largest international gatherings around the globe since the Covid-19 pandemic, infectious diseases are front of mind.

Of particular concern is an outbreak of Ebola that is ravaging parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo, whose team is scheduled to play matches in Houston, Atlanta and Guadalajara. Officials are also monitoring threats from hantavirus, a rare but serious infection that recently broke out on a cruise ship full of international travelers.

“We’re going to have people from all over the world coming into the city, into the county, for these games, and that’s great,” said Anish Mahajan, the deputy health director in Los Angeles County, which is introducing wastewater surveillance at a large sporting event for the first time. “But that’s a massive risk for various infections.”

The United States’ vast and fractured public health system is prepared to respond. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has taken on a high-level role gathering and reporting outbreak data, sharing guidance on testing and reporting symptoms. In recent weeks, CDC officials have convened weekly calls with public health offices in the 11 U.S. host cities and dispatched staff to assist them in person. Doctors nationwide are participating in simulations that anticipate the worst.

Those state, county and city health departments face a tricky challenge as they gird for Ebola: promoting tools and strategies forged through the response to Covid but without the pandemic-era funding that helped develop them.

Disease detectives in Atlanta

The Centers for Disease Control has long used the World Cup as an example of the types of mass gathering that “face unique risks” from both communicable diseases and non-communicable conditions like “temperature extremes, stampedes, environmental hazards, and challenging security situations,” as the center wrote in the latest edition of its Yellow Book guidance for health care professionals tending to international travelers. It also released a fan-facing website that includes guidance on avoiding infectious diseases.

That threat is now hitting close to home for the CDC, whose headquarters is around seven miles from Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium, where the Congolese national team is scheduled to play its final group-stage match on June 27. After matches there, the Georgia Department of Public Health will monitor people who show up at local emergency rooms for symptoms of an outbreak, according to a department spokesperson.

“DPH maintains robust statewide surveillance systems to detect early signs of unusual disease activity,” Nancy Nydam Shirek, a spokesperson with the Georgia Department of Public Health, said in a statement. “These systems are supported by strong laboratory capacity and close coordination with healthcare providers and local health departments.”

The preparations around Mercedes-Benz Stadium as the signage is transitioned to become Atlanta Stadium ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026 is seen in Atlanta, on May 30, 2026. | Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

Data collected by state and local agencies like Georgia’s will feed into a “syndromic surveillance” system maintained by the CDC, which can then map out trends in symptoms. A dedicated World Cup data dashboard will “give state and local health departments enhanced visibility into disease trends both within and beyond their jurisdictions,” an agency spokesperson told POLITICO.

Through programs known as the Epidemic Intelligence Service and Laboratory Leadership Service, more than a dozen CDC officers nicknamed “disease detectives and detectors” are assisting states hosting World Cup activity, including Kansas, Texas and Washington, as they scale up their wastewater monitoring and testing capacities.