1 : A global disease surveillance platform, comprising: a platform processor, wherein potential public health events are identified, determined, analyzed, and wherein responses to the public health events are monitored; an interface coupled to the platform processor, wherein the interface receives external information feeds comprising structured and unstructured data, and wherein meta-data are extracted from the structured and unstructured data, indexed, and related back to the structured and unstructured data; an external services module that provides services to facilitate the responses; and a storage device, wherein meta-data from the structured and unstructured data, and the structured and unstructured data are stored.