WHO Launches Global Network to Detect Infectious Disease Threat
- May 21, 2023
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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WHO Launches Global Network to Detect Infectious Disease Threat
Subject : International Events
Section: International Events
Concept :
- The World Health Organization has launched a global network to help swiftly detect the threat from infectious diseases, like COVID-19, and share the information to prevent their spread.
About International Pathogen Surveillance Network (IPSN):
- The International Pathogen Surveillance Network (IPSN) is a global network of pathogen genomic actors.
- It is hosted by the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence.
- Its aim isto accelerate progress on the deployment of pathogen genomics and improve public health decision-making.
- By strengthening the pathogen genomic surveillance ecosystem, the IPSN enables faster detection of new pathogens and the enhanced tracking of the spread and evolution of diseases.
- This in turn can drive better public health responses.
- The IPSN supports ongoing disease surveillance and will help detect and fully characterize new disease threats before they become epidemics or pandemics.
- Vision/Mission Behind IPSN
- A world where every country has equitable access to sustained capacity for genomic sequencing and analytics as part of its public health surveillance system.
Need for an International Surveillance Network for Pathogens
- COVID-19 highlighted the critical role pathogen genomics plays when responding to pandemic threats.
- As pointed out by the WHO that without the rapid sequencing of the SARS CoV-2 virus, vaccines would not have been as effective and would not have become available as quickly.
- New and more transmissible variants of the virus would also not have been identified as quickly.
- WHO said that genomics lies at the heart of effective epidemic and pandemic preparedness and response.
- While the pandemic spurred countries to scale up their genomics capacity, the agency warned that many still lack effective systems for collecting and analysing samples.
- The IPSN would help address such challenges.