When the initial reports of the COVID-19 pandemic started pouring in some time at the end of the year 2019, few could anticipate the kind of storm that was about to set in. But the storm that came swept the world into a state of inertia – where no one was sure where the globe was headed.
The COVID-19 storm has blown past us. The memories still hurt – the loss of lives, jobs, property, and more. But are we well prepared for the next pandemic? Are we?
Well, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the World Health Organization (WHO) recently called on researchers and governments to strengthen and accelerate global research to prepare for the next pandemic.
They stressed the importance of expanding research to encompass entire families of pathogens that can infect humans–regardless of their perceived pandemic risk– and focusing on individual pathogens.
The approach proposes using prototype pathogens as guides or pathfinders to develop the knowledge base for entire pathogen families.
At the Global Pandemic Preparedness Summit 2024 held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, WHO R&D Blueprint for Epidemics issued a report urging a broader-based approach by researchers and countries. This approach aims to create broadly applicable knowledge, tools and countermeasures that can rapidly adapt to emerging threats.
This strategy also aims to speed up surveillance and research to understand how pathogens transmit and infect humans and how the immune system responds to them.
The report’s authors likened its updated recommendation to imagining scientists as individuals searching for lost keys on a street (the next pandemic pathogen). The area illuminated by the streetlight represents well-studied pathogens with known pandemic potential.
By researching prototype pathogens, we can expand the lighted area, gaining knowledge and understanding of pathogen families that might currently be in the dark. The dark spaces in this metaphor include many regions of the world, particularly resource-scarce settings with high biodiversity, which are still under-monitored and understudied. These places might harbour novel pathogens but lack the infrastructure and resources to conduct comprehensive research.
“WHO’s scientific framework for epidemic and pandemic research preparedness is a vital shift in how the world approaches countermeasure development, and one that is strongly supported by CEPI”, said Dr Richard Hatchett, CEO of CEPI.
“As presented at the Global Pandemic Preparedness Summit 2024 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, this framework will help steer and coordinate research into entire pathogen families, a strategy that aims to bolster the world’s ability to swiftly respond to unforeseen variants, emerging pathogens, zoonotic spillover, and unknown threats referred to as pathogen X”, Dr Hatchett, noted.
The prioritization work underpinning the report involved more than 200 scientists from more than 50 countries, who evaluated the science and evidence on 28 virus families and one core group of bacteria, encompassing 1652 pathogens.
The epidemic and pandemic risk was determined by considering available information on transmission patterns, virulence, and availability of diagnostic tests, vaccines, and treatments.
CEPI and WHO also called for globally coordinated, collaborative research to prepare for potential pandemics.
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“History teaches us that the next pandemic is a matter of when, not if. It also teaches us the importance of science and political resolve in blunting its impact,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.
“We need that same combination of science and political resolve to come together as we prepare for the next pandemic. Advancing our knowledge of the many pathogens that surround us is a global project requiring the participation of scientists from every country.”
To facilitate this, WHO is engaging research institutions across the world to establish a Collaborative Open Research Consortium (CORC) for each pathogen family, with a WHO Collaborating Centre acting as the research hub for each family.
These CORCs around the world will involve researchers, developers, funders, regulators, trial experts and others, to promote greater research collaboration and equitable participation, particularly from places where the pathogens are known to or highly likely to circulate.
Text: who.int/Main Image on top by Наркологическая Клиника from Pixabay
