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The World Health Organization (WHO) launched on Saturday May 20, 2023 the International Network for the Surveillance of Pathogens, an organization allowing the early detection of emerging infectious diseases. An initiative aimed at preventing pandemics like that of Covid-19.
Global health surveillance
The International Pathogen Surveillance Network (IPSN), or International Pathogen Surveillance Network in French, is a new international system for monitoring emerging infectious diseases. Developed by the WHO, it consists of a platform on which all countries and regions can share information on diseases as well as sample analyses.
For example, countries around the world will be able to share information on the dangerousness of a new pathogen, its different modes of transmission, etc. The objective is to quickly and easily identify the emergence of communicable diseases in order to quickly put in place effective measures (treatments, vaccines, etc.) that will prevent pandemics such as Covid-19.
Lessons learned from the Covid-19 pandemic
The IPSN platform will allow each country to have access to the sequencing and genomic analysis of pathogens. In a statement, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus recalls that sharing information is essential to avoid further health disasters: “As was so clearly demonstrated to us during the Covid-19 pandemic, the world is stronger when united to fight common health threats.” Indeed, the study of the SARS CoV-2 genome has made it possible to develop vaccines against Covid-19 disease and to curb the pandemic.
Focus on genomics
This new global network gives pride of place to genomics, the science that studies the genome and without which the virus responsible for Covid-19 and its variants could not have been identified. Problem, some countries lack the means to carry out the genetic analysis of pathogens. This is why the IPSN has decided to give “all countries access to pathogen genome sequencing and testing as part of their public health system”assures Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The IPSN secretariat will be based at the “Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence”, in Berlin, Germany.