Early-warning ‘pandemic hub’ plan unveiled by WHO’s Tedros and Germany’s Merkel
(United Nations News) An international hub for pandemic control is to open in Berlin to ensure better preparedness and transparency in the fight against likely future global health threats, the UN health agency announced on Wednesday.
Supported by the German Government, the centre will specialise in gathering epidemic intelligence, data, surveillance and analytics innovation.
It will open later this year, according to Chancellor Angela Merkel, who explained how she had first discussed the idea last autumn, with World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“The world has learned that we can only meet a global challenge such as the current COVID-19 pandemic through joint action,” said Chancellor Merkel, in a pre-recorded video message, broadcast during a press conference at the WHO in Geneva.
“Meanwhile, we have also realised that the WHO is the central global health institution in this effort. An essential basis for the fight against future pandemics is data. Data that, when bundled and processed with the correct analytical tools, yields insights that we could never discover on our own, or at least not so quickly.”
Read more at: United Nations News
Source: CARICOM TODAY