WS 15 - Strengthening Pandemic Preparedness & Response

COVID-19 has shown the importance of international collaboration in tackling global health threats. A comprehensive public health approach including multidisciplinary actors resulted in the rapid development of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines. While major scientific strides were made, effectively controlling the virus faced important challenges such as the waning trust in public health institutions, the impact of policies on equitable access, and healthcare systems’ capacity to reach the last mile. Ebola outbreaks have similarly highlighted the gaps and opportunities in pandemic preparedness and response in low- and middle-income countries. International collaboration led to the eventual control of the major 2014 – 2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, including the deployment of a new vaccine that resulted from public-private partnership, including improvement in research ecosystems of countries. The experience with Ebola has helped increase capacity of countries to respond to outbreaks and health emergencies. Countries and global partners achieved improvements in research, evidence and public health capacities and policies which were quickly utilized for the COVID-19 pandemic. However, despite the availability of vaccines, increasingly frequent outbreaks continue to happen in Africa and access to necessary countermeasures remain limited in countries most impacted. What lessons can we learn from the COVID-19 and the Ebola experiences to enable the world to be better prepared for future epidemics and pandemics, from a multi-sectoral collaboration point of view. How can countries be assisted in strengthening their research, innovation and public health ecosystems?This panel session aims to highlight concrete examples of how timely and coordinated partnerships can lead to more effective preparedness and response to pandemic threats and discuss what else is needed to ensure that tools to keep the world safer reach those that need them most.