2023-05-20 15:51:22
New infectious diseases: WHO launches global detection network
The network will connect experts in genetics and data analysis. Objective: to better perform genome sequencing of viruses, bacteria and other emerging pathogens.
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The new network will connect experts from around the world from the public, academic and private sectors.
Photo d’illustration/AFP
The World Health Organization (WHO) on Saturday launched an international surveillance network to quickly detect threats posed by emerging potentially deadly infectious diseases like Covid-19, and share information to prevent pandemics.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the new device as “ambitious”, stressing that it could play “a vital role for security in the field of health”. “As has been so evident during the Covid-19 pandemic, the world is stronger when united to fight common health threats,” he said.
The International Pathogen Surveillance Network (IPSN) will rely on genomics, which consists of sequencing the genome of viruses, bacteria and other pathogens and studying their functioning in order to determine their contagiousness, their dangerousness and their mode of diffusion.
The Covid-19 experience
The new network, the launch of which comes on the eve of the World Health Assembly which brings together WHO member countries in Geneva each year, will bring together experts from all over the world in genetics and data analysis, from public, academic and private sectors. “All share a common goal: to detect and respond to disease threats before they become epidemics and pandemics and to optimize routine disease surveillance,” the WHO said.
The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of studying the genome of viruses to combat the diseases for which they are responsible. Without the rapid sequencing of the genome of SARS CoV-2, the virus responsible for the Covid-19 disease, vaccines could not have been developed so quickly and be so effective, notes the WHO. The new variants of the virus, even more contagious, could not have been identified so quickly.
Crucial also for the control of other viruses such as influenza
“Genomics is at the heart of effective preparedness and response to epidemics and pandemics,” said the WHO, stressing that genetic analysis of pathogens was as crucial for the control of many diseases as it was. whether it’s the flu or AIDS.
While the Covid-19 pandemic has prompted countries to improve their genome sequencing capacities, others still lack the means to collect and analyze samples, the WHO said. The new global network is called upon to meet this type of challenge, as it should “give all countries access to pathogen genome sequencing and analyzes as part of their public health system”, according to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
(AFP)
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