German Federal Chancellor, Dr. Angela Merkel and Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, World Health Organization Director-General, will today inaugurate the new WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence in Berlin. The aim of the Hub is to better prepare and protect the world from global disease threats.
“The world needs to be able to detect new events with pandemic potential and to monitor disease control measures on a real-time basis to create effective pandemic and epidemic risk management. This Hub will be key to that effort”.
Dr Tedros
According to Dr Tedros, the Hub is leveraging innovations in data science for public health surveillance and response. As such, it will create systems that will aid the sharing and expansion of expertise in this area globally.
Dr Tedros indicted that all the work that goes into pandemic and epidemic preparedness must occur before an outbreak starts. To execute this effectively, he explained that the Hub will focus on Data linkage and analysis. It will also aid the ability to detect and assess risks of disease events in their earliest stages before they amplify and cause death and societal disruption.
“WHO is grateful that partners like Germany and Chancellor Merkel are joining the world on this necessary path”.
Dr Tedros
Initial funding for the Hub
The WHO Hub is receiving an initial investment of US$ 100 million from the Federal Republic of Germany. But, it will harness broad and diverse partnerships across many professional disciplines, and the latest technology to link the data, tools and communities of practice. This will enable the sharing of actionable data and intelligence for the common good.
“Despite decades of investment, COVID-19 has revealed the great gaps that exist in the world’s ability to forecast, detect, assess and respond to outbreaks that threaten people worldwide” .
Dr Michael Ryan, Executive Director of WHO’s Health Emergency Program
Consequently, Dr Ryan stated that the WHO Hub is designed to develop the data access, analytic tools and communities of practice to fill these very gaps. He indicated that the Hub will also promote collaboration and sharing, and protect the world from such crises in the future.
Operations of the Hub
The core mandate of the Hub is to enhance methods for access to multiple data sources vital to generating signals and insights on disease emergence, evolution and impact.
Also, the Hub is to develop state of the art tools to process, analyze and model data. This will aid detection, assessment and response.
Moreover, it will provide WHO Member States and partners with these tools to underpin better, faster decisions on tacking outbreaks .
Furthermore, it will connect and catalyze institutions and networks developing disease outbreak solutions for the present and future.
The WHO Hub will be a new collaboration of countries and partners worldwide. The collaboration will drive innovations to increase availability of key data.
Currently, the Hub is operating from a centre provided by the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. It will soon move to a permanent campus at the heart of Berlin in Kreuzberg.
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