Over the past decade, syndromic surveillance, as supplementation of disease surveillance, has provided possibility of early alert in a real-time way for detection of emerging infectious diseases and outbreaks of widespread infectious diseases, resulting in improvement in sensitivity of outbreak detection and public health alert capacity. This tool has been highly valued and widely used in the world, and effective implementation has been observed in China. Upon abundant literature search, the authors reviewed the progress and advance of syndromic surveillance in early alert of emerging infectious diseases and outbreaks, and analyzed the problem met in the current situation in China when implementing syndromic surveillance in local facilities, which are high cost, lack of medical information platform, lack of real-time digital alert system and lack of a comprehensive information exchange platform. The authors suggested that syndromic surveillance should be implemented considering the local situation and performed in a more effective way in the current situation. Syndromic surveillance has to be integrated into the conventional public health surveillance systems and advanced laboratory networks. Digital information system is urgently needed to achieve real-time alert.