Global threat of infectious diseases || متعدی بیماریوں کا عالمی خطرہ
Global threat of infectious diseases || متعدی بیماریوں کا عالمی خطرہ Through the potential of pathogen genomes, WHO and partners are establishing a global network to assist in defending people against the dangers of infectious diseases. The International Pathogen Surveillance Network (IPSN) will offer a platform to connect nations and areas, enhancing systems for gathering and analyzing sample data, using this knowledge to influence public health decisions, and disseminating that data more widely.
Pathogen genomics examines the genetic material of viruses, bacteria, and other disease-causing agents to learn more about how contagious, lethal, and contagious they are. With the use of this data, researchers and public health professionals can recognize and monitor diseases in order to avoid outbreaks, respond to them as part of a larger disease monitoring system, and create new medications and vaccinations.
The IPSN brings together specialists from governments, charitable foundations, multilateral organizations, civil society, academia, and the corporate sector who are at the bleeding edge of genomics and data analytics. Its Secretariat is housed inside the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence. All of them have the same objective: to improve regular disease surveillance and to identify and address disease threats before they develop into epidemics and pandemics.
As stated by WHO Director-General Dr. “This new network’s goal is ambitious, but it can also play a crucial role in health security: to give every country access to pathogens,” said Tudors Adatom Ghebreyesus.
genomic sequencing and analytics as part of its public health system.” The world is stronger when it joins forces to combat common health dangers, as was so amply shown to us during the COVID-19 epidemic.
The importance of pathogen genomes in reacting to pandemic risks was underlined by OVID-19. The SARS-COV-2 genome was promptly sequenced, which allowed vaccinations to be developed and distributed more quickly. The discovery of new, more contagious virus varieties would not have happened as swiftly. Effective preparedness and response for epidemics and pandemics, as well as ongoing surveillance of a wide range of diseases, from foodborne illnesses and influenza to tuberculosis and HIV, all depend on genomics. Antiretroviral regimes that have saved countless lives have been made possible by its usage, for example, in tracking the spread of HIV drug resistance.
Global threat of infectious diseases || متعدی بیماریوں کا عالمی خطرہ The Rockefeller Foundation President Dr. Rajiv J. Shah stated that “global collaboration in pathogen genomic surveillance has been critical as the world fights COVID-19 together.” “IPSN builds on this experience by establishing a solid platform for partners across sectors and borders to share knowledge, tools, and practices to ensure that pandemic prevention and response is innovative and effective in the future.”
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic’s recent scaling up of genomics capabilities in several nations, many still lack efficient methods for gathering and analyzing samples or utilizing those data to guide public health decision-making. Data, best practices, and innovations are not shared widely enough to allow for the construction of a reliable global health surveillance architecture. Even in the richest nations, budgets that skyrocketed during the epidemic allowed for a quick build-up of capabilities are now being cut.
According to Josefina Campos, Director of the National Genomics and Bioinformatics Centre at ANLIS Malaren in Argentina, “Argentina is deeply invested in building our own country capacity in pathogen genomics and the capacity of other countries.” “Diseases do not recognize national boundaries; a disease danger in one country poses a risk to others as well. We look forward to working with IPSN members to accomplish our shared objective of sickness prevention and life preservation.
In order to create a collaborative system to better identify, prevent, and respond to disease risks, the IPSN will address these difficulties through a worldwide network that connects geographic regions and disease-specific networks. Members will collaborate in focused groups to address particular problems, with financing provided by the IPSN to scale-up pathogen genomics concepts and projects. The IPSN will help to boost key capacity, elevate regional and national voices, and enhance their priorities by connecting nations, regions, and larger stakeholders.
A Secretariat located in the WHO Pandemic Hub supports the IPSN’s three primary operational organizations, which unite several stakeholder groups. In Communities of Practice (COPs), partners work together to address shared problems in an effort to boost innovation and harmonization in pathogen genomics. Stakeholders collaborate in the Country Scale-Up Accelerator (CSUA) to coordinate activities and facilitate South-South exchange to speed up country capacity building. The COP and CSUA bring together businesses from various industries, socioeconomic classes, and and regions, with a dedication to global equity and cooperation and in-depth knowledge of either genomics or nation-scale-up of surveillance systems. The Funders Forum is the third organization, and it brings together philanthropic, multilateral, and governmental funders to coordinate efforts to enhance political attention to and the effectiveness of funding for pathogen genome surveillance. Additionally, the Funders Forum stimulates new grant funding for projects by IPSN members.
The financing provided by the German government to the WHO Pandemic Hub helped develop the IPSN.
a brief description of the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence The WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence (the WHO Pandemic Hub), which is a component of the WHO Health Emergencies Programmed, facilitates an international partnership of partners from various sectors to assist countries and stakeholders in addressing future pandemic and epidemic risks with better access to data, better analytical capabilities, and better tools and insights for decision-making. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which exposed flaws in how nations throughout the world detect, monitor, and manage public health threats, the WHO Pandemic Hub was founded in September 2021 in Berlin with funding from the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany.
The WHO Pandemic Hub collaborates closely with Member States, WHO Regional Offices, and Country Offices to improve their data-sharing capabilities and make it possible for partners all over the world to work together and co-create tools to collect and analyze data for early warning monitoring. The breadth of WHO allows us to tackle pandemic, epidemic, and public health hazards with similar urgency and diligence around the world thanks to its presence in more than six Regional Offices, its Geneva Headquarters, and 150 nations.
The WHO Pandemic Hub creates a collaborative environment for innovators, scientists, and experts from a wide range of disciplines by connecting local, regional, and international initiatives. This enables us to use and share cutting-edge technology and grounds our work in the requirements of stakeholders all over the world.
It will draw on knowledge from a variety of disciplines, industries, and geographical areas and make use of the convening ability of WHO to promote global solutions based on a system of mutual trust and collaboration.
You may read more about the WHO Pandemic Hub here:
Reference
https://www.who.int/news/item/20-05-2023-who-launches-global-network-to–detect