Why Is a Global Network Necessary to Detect and Prevent Infectious Diseases?
A global network announced by the World Health Organization (WHO) detects and responds to disease threats before they become epidemic or pandemic. The network may help optimize routine disease surveillance ().
Pathogen genomics analyses the genetic code of viruses, bacteria and other disease-causing organisms to understand how infectious they are, how deadly they are, and how they spread.
‘The International Pathogen Surveillance Network (IPSN) presents a platform to collaborate countries and regions, and improve systems for aggregating and analyzing samples using these data to drive public health decision-making.’
With this information, scientists and public health officials can identify and track diseases to prevent and respond to outbreaks as part of a broader disease surveillance system, and to develop vaccines.
Sustaining Infectious Diseases with a New Global Network
"The goal of this new network is ambitious, but it can also play a vital role in health security: To give every country access to pathogen genomic sequencing and analytics as part of its public health system," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement."As was so clearly demonstrated to us during the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is stronger when it stands together to fight shared health threats," he added.
The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the critical role pathogen genomics plays in responding to pandemic threats. Without the rapid sequencing of the SARS-CoV-2 genome, vaccines would not have been as effective, or have been made available so quickly.
New, more transmissible variants of the virus would not have been as quickly identified. Genomics lies at the heart of effective epidemic and pandemic preparedness and response, as well as part of the ongoing surveillance of a vast range of diseases, from foodborne diseases and influenza to tuberculosis and HIV.
Its use in monitoring the spread of HIV drug resistance for example, has led to antiretroviral regimes that have saved countless lives.
Despite recent scale-up in genomics capacity in countries as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many still lack effective systems for collecting and analyzing samples or using those data to drive public health decision-making.
Reference:
- WHO launches global network to detect and prevent infectious disease threats - (https:www.who.int/news/item/20-05-2023-who-launches-global-network-to--detect-and-prevent-infectious-disease-threats)