International Pathogen Surveillance Network announces first recipients of grants to better understand disease threats

Sub : Sci

Sec: Health

Context:

The World Health Organization (WHO) and partners announced 10 projects that will receive almost US$ 2 million in grants to improve capacities in pathogen genomic surveillance.

Details:

The catalytic grant fund was established by the International Pathogen Surveillance Network (IPSN) to strengthen pathogen genomic surveillance in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
Technology Focus:
- Analyses the genetic code of pathogens (viruses, bacteria, fungi).
- Tracks pathogen spread, severity, and evolution.
- Supports vaccine and treatment development.
- Enables faster public health decisions.
Host and Supporters:
- Hosted by the United Nations Foundation and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, and Wellcome.

Key Benefits:

Improved Disease Surveillance: Better tracking of infectious diseases and emerging threats.
Enhanced Decision-Making: Supports countries in taking rapid, informed actions.
Equitable Access: Focuses on building capabilities in LMICs to reduce global health disparities.

Grant Recipients and Projects:

Highlighted examples of innovative applications:

American University of Beirut (Lebanon):
- Focus: Wastewater genomic surveillance to track diseases in refugee populations.
- Goal: Provide early care and support in migration settings.
Pasteur Institute (Laos):
- Focus: Monitoring avian flu in live-bird markets using genomic tools.
- Importance: A crucial but overlooked setting impacting millions.
Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil):
- Focus: Develop an open-source bioinformatics tool for offline analyses.
- Potential: Scalable to global use, particularly in low-resource settings.

Grantee List by Country:

Africa: Angola, Cameroon, DRC, Ghana, Rwanda.
Asia-Pacific: India, Laos, Sri Lanka.
- Ashoka University, International Foundation for Research and Education, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (India) – “Quantitative mapping of environmental to clinical AMR via DNA barcoding”
Middle East: Lebanon.
Latin America: Brazil.

International Pathogen Surveillance Network (IPSN):

A global network of pathogen genomic actors established by the WHO Pandemic Hub to expand genomic sequencing and analytics and improve public health decision-making.
Vision: Equitable access to genomic surveillance for every country.
Applications:
- Pandemic/epidemic prevention.
- Emerging uses like wastewater surveillance and monitoring foodborne diseases.

WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence (WHO-PEI):

Forming part of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence (the WHO Pandemic Hub), facilitates a global collaboration of partners from multiple sectors that supports countries and stakeholders to address future pandemic and epidemic risks with better access to data, better analytical capacities, and better tools and insights for decision-making.
With support from the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany, the WHO Pandemic Hub was established in September 2021 in Berlin, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which demonstrated weaknesses around the world in how countries detect, monitor and manage public health threats.

Centre for Pathogen Genomics (CPG):

The Centre for Pathogen Genomics at the Doherty Institute, University of Melbourne is an academic and training hub that supports new collaboration for translational research, genomics-informed infectious disease surveillance, and capacity building and training across the Asia-Pacific region.
The Centre is underpinned by a portfolio of world-leading experts across pathogen genomics, public health, surveillance, bioinformatics, research, and capacity building and training, with years of experience in using cutting-edge technologies to address infectious diseases of national and global importance.