1 August 2024 Joint News Release Geneva
https://www.who.int/news/item/01-08-2024-cepi-and-who-urge-broader-resea...
'The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the World Health Organization (WHO) today called on researchers and governments to strengthen and accelerate global research to prepare for the next pandemic.
'They emphasized the importance of expanding research to encompass entire families of pathogens that can infect humans–regardless of their perceived pandemic risk–as well as focusing on individual pathogens.'
COMMENT (NPW): There is a disconnect between the title and the content of this news release. The title implies a broad-based comprehensive approach, whereas the content is specifically focused on individual specific pathogens. WHO itself recognised in the early days of COVID-19 the enormous harm caused by misinformation. Since then it has supported efforts to 'combat' misinformation, but what is really needed is political and financial commitment to strengthen the global evidence ecosystem and thereby accelerate progress towards universal access to reliable healthcare information. WHO is uniquely placed to take the lead, as advocated by stakeholders worldwide in our recent survey report. https://www.hifa.org/news/press-release-global-health-advocates-call-wor...
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org
