•IoT within infectious disease epidemiology is an emerging field of research, however the ubiquitous availability of smart technologies, as well as increased risks of infectious disease spread through the globalization and interconnectedness of the world necessitates its use for predicting, preventing and controlling emerging infectious diseases.•Considering the present situation in China, IoT based smart disease surveillance systems have the potential to be a major breakthrough in efforts to control the current pandemic. With much of the infrastructure itself in place already (i.e. smartphones, wearable technologies, internet access) the role this technology can have in limiting the spread of the pandemic involves only the collection and analysis of data already gathered.•More research must be carried out for the development of automated and effective alert systems to provide early and timely detection of outbreaks of such diseases in order to reduce morbidity mortality and prevent global spread.