COMMUNICATING GENOMICS SURVEILLANCE WITH IMPACT
@Canva
Effective communication
As the world becomes more integrated, the threat of disease outbreaks has become an increasing public health concern.
The widespread availability of media and communication platforms and tools risks worsening this threat by creating conducive conditions for the spread of misinformation, conspiracy theories and cynicism about public health messages. Scientific evidence and data are important to overcoming harmful information and other barriers that impede communication on health behaviours. This week we will cover the skills required for effective communication of scientific evidence and how to apply them to engage different audiences. We will address topics such as understanding effective communication, preparing to communicate with different audiences, crafting messages according to purpose, choosing channels for different purposes, and dealing with the media.
What is effective communication?
Communication is best positioned to achieve its purpose when the communicator understands:
The meaning of effective communication.
The interdependent roles of senders and receivers in ensuring meaning is mutually understood.
How to anticipate and overcome barriers to effective communication of scientific evidence.
Preparing to communicate with different audiences
Effective communication requires an understanding of how unique characteristics inform the information needs and response behaviours of different audiences. The communicator must be aware of the importance of audience segmentation, the information and media habits of different audiences, and how their beliefs, perceptions, knowledge, and attitudes inform their responses to health recommendations.
Crafting messages according to purpose
Different audiences have different needs when it comes to messaging on scientific data of public health importance. It is essential that the goal or outcome intended informs the nature and content of messages. Effective communication will incorporate different types of messages, including informative, persuasive, and instructional. The communicator also needs to understand the importance of matching audience needs to message types and the complementarity of verbal and non-verbal cues in ensuring message clarity and effectiveness.
Choosing channels for different purposes and audiences
Different audiences have different information habits and practices that determine the channels and platforms they prefer to receive and send information. Individual channels also have different characteristics and capacities that will make some better suited for a specific communication activity than others. When selecting the appropriate channels, the communicator should consider the strengths and weaknesses of the channel, the importance of matching audience habits and needs with channel characteristics and making channel choices based on the goals underpinning the communicative action.
Dealing with the media
The media are a double-edged sword, with the power to both help and hurt the realisation of public health outcomes. Scientific data and information must be used to leverage the opportunities that the media offer. Thus, it is important to understand how the media work and its implications for the effective communication of scientific evidence and learn how to both engage the media as allies and use the media to reach public audiences.
Ethics of communication
In this video lecture, Dr Euzebiusz Jamrozik discusses how to ethically collect and communicate data to prevent stigmatisation.
Communicating with the public
For several years, pathogen genomics has informed public health responses to infectious diseases, as well as the global health response to disease outbreaks and epidemics. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted not only the importance of pathogen genomics in epidemics but also that there is a need to focus on effective communication of pathogen genomic data. This information must be properly communicated by healthcare professionals, scientists, policymakers and the media, and it should consider the current context and happenings.
In most cases of infectious disease control, communication strategies have mainly focused on the individual and involve one-to-one communication between the healthcare provider and the individual about the diagnosis and treatment plan. However, with advances in genomics sequencing, it is likely that diagnosis for an infectious disease that may have genomic information of the infectious agent (pathogen) will be available as part of the diagnosis. How the healthcare provider communicates this information to their client may have an impact not only on the individual (e.g. their privacy) but also on their community. For example, take the case where HIV testing and surveillance also reveal hotspot areas. This could lead to stigmatisation and discrimination of people in that community, which is likely to be worse for those who are already part of stigmatised or marginalised groups.
Public engagement and communication of pathogen genomic information during disease outbreaks is key to the public health response. Generally, the public health responses to disease outbreaks are aimed at effective containment of the outbreak through:
Bringing it to an end as soon as possible.
Taking care of those affected by the outbreak.
Contact tracing and surveillance to identify new cases or disease hotspots.
Taking care of people who have become ill from the infectious agent and preventing new cases of the disease.
Information about these public health measures should therefore be included in messages to the public. More recently, genomic information about the causative pathogen may be included in the first announcements of an outbreak or a new strain of concern.
Public communication and engagement strategies during an outbreak response would ideally involve a mix of media approaches (e.g. print media, radio, TV, social media, press releases from various stakeholders, announcements in community and religious gatherings), seek to engage diverse stakeholders and be tailored to each stakeholder group (e.g. children of school going age, healthcare workers, policymakers). It is also worth noting that social media has transformed public engagement and communication in science, as well as how people consume information. Irrespective of the engagement and communication strategy that will be used, it must be designed and implemented following good practices.
Best practices for public engagement and communication during outbreaks
Have a pre-existing public engagement and communication plan; identify key stakeholders, and define the role and responsibilities of each stakeholder.
Build public trust in the public health system; empathic messaging and communicating style, including honesty in situational reports and the expertise of the messenger, are key.
Be transparent about outbreak origins, new strains, progress and uncertainties, what is known and unknown, public health measures that will be used and why, and the different methods public officials will use for communication.
Respect public concerns about the outbreak.
Be sensitive to local practices and culture.
Consider the unpredictability of outbreaks.
Furthermore, communication of pathogen genomic information will be shaped by a variety of factors, including but not limited to:
Political climate (democratic vs authoritative governments) will determine the flow and depth of information that can be covered during public engagement and communication.
Economic resources where there are fewer resources to support outbreak response, national governments may want to limit media coverage for fear of raising public anxiety or causing economic disruption by being forced to adopt certain measures, such as lockdowns.
International diplomacy may influence reporting of new outbreaks and or new strains of concern. Some countries may fear discrimination of citizens at the global level or that reporting of genomic information may easily link them to the origins, thereby leading to discrimination.
Availability of public health authorities and scientists to communicate and respond to public concerns without heightening anxiety.
Cultural context and behavioural patterns of communities.
Public literacy/knowledge about the infectious agent or disease. For example, the communication strategy for Ebola in many West African countries today would be very different from that of a new emerging infectious disease.
It is worth noting that whilst public communication of pathogen genomic information during disease outbreaks is key to the global health response, it can fuel public anxiety and lead to the stigmatisation of certain groups. It also needs to be recognised that competition amongst scientists, media houses and institutions to be the first to report on an outbreak or a new strain can lead to exaggeration of the outbreak and control measures, perpetuate discrimination, increase public anxiety, and lead to a breakdown of public trust in science.
To conclude, it is important for scientists, public health officials and media personnel to have some understanding of how their communities or the public perceive risks during disease outbreaks, and to frame their messages with these perceptions in mind.
How to prevent misinformation
In this video, Dr Anastasia Koch tells us about her experience working at Eh!woza and building trust within communities to make a real impact in public engagement.
Media and the public
The discussion in this video is about the challenges in disseminating scientific information to the general public. Watch Christine, Emma, Richard and Thanat share their experiences communicating with the press and media.
Informing public health professionals: Viet Nam case study part 1
To examine how research impacts policy-making and what lessons we have learnt as scientists and policymakers from the pandemic, we are going to focus on a case study from Viet Nam’s Oxford University Clinical Research Unit (OUCRU). In the first part of this case study, we will think about how scientific evidence is used to inform policy.
OUCRU, with more than 30-year experience in conducting health research in Viet Nam, has set a new vision of having a local, regional, and global impact on health by leading a locally driven research programme on infectious diseases in Southeast Asia.
By reviewing Ministry of Health guidelines, case studies and conducting interviews with key stakeholders, the team at OUCRU were able to begin to understand the policy development processes, how to use evidence in decision-making, challenges and opportunities to policy and research engagement, as well as how to improve engagement between policymakers and research communities.
OUCRU found several factors that increased the likelihood of policymakers’ accepting research findings including the timeliness of research, the relevance of topics, accessibility of research results, unequivocal nature of findings, quality of research methods and long-term trusted collaborations.
Apart from government officials and local authorities, other key informants like international organisations, local non-governmental organisations, civil society organisations, or activists also had a role in each step of the policy development process. For advocacy approaches to be successful they needed researchers to build their capacity and understanding of policy processes, to engage early with policymakers and over the whole course of a study, and use explicit and systematic advocacy approaches and engage in frequent communication.
Policy development in Viet Nam is continuous with scientists and management institutions participating in the process. In the past ten years, improvements in how genomic evidence is used, and the involvement of scientists, have resulted in better application of research results into health care and public health practice. Policy development was fast and Viet Nam had better access to updated information globally. However, obstacles still existed: time pressure, lack of information, limited capacity, and lack of standard procedures for policy development caused difficulties in the policy formulation process.
Policies in Viet Nam were found to be evidence-informed but influenced by other considerations such as contextual factors and available resources. Policymakers selected evidence for decision-making based on the strength of evidence, the quality of research studies, the appropriateness with the context of Viet Nam, and the source of evidence.
However, the engagement between researchers and policymakers is not particularly close in Viet Nam. The two communities saw things differently and had different priorities. Researchers’ unwillingness to share data, policymakers’ time constraints and the high rate of staff turnover were commonly mentioned as obstacles.
Engaging with policymakers: Viet Nam case study part 2
The team at Oxford University Clinical Research Unit (OUCRU) developed a series of recommendations based on their work that may be relevant in many different contexts. They conducted a series of in-depth interviews between November 2019 and March 2020, so it’s helpful to remember that a lot of these issues are not unique to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, but can be considered for a variety of pathogen outbreaks.
OUCRU’s findings demonstrated that while researchers often do engage with policymakers, this is often not systematic and that it is also hard to quantify, track and assess the impact of these interactions. Accordingly, they suggested some key recommendations to improve engagement with policymakers going forwards:
Researchers would benefit from more education about the policymaking process, as this will help them to target their communication with policy stakeholders in a way that is more likely to produce the desired uptakes of their research data.
Policy engagement needs to be better embedded into the research culture of the organisation so that researchers are familiar with the concept and terminology and are able to plan engagement activities as part of their research practice.
Researchers should include policy engagement activities in their grant applications and cost them accordingly.
Researchers should be recognised for their policy engagement work.
There needs to be a channel (or many channels) in place for policy stakeholders to be able to access the research community, and a corresponding channel in place for researchers to be able to access the stakeholders.
When thinking about systemic policy engagement, we do not need to have the projects completed and research results in place before that engagement takes place, and it is preferable if engagement is happening throughout the entire research life cycle.
Policy engagement outputs should be centrally collected in a systematic way, and regular reports produced.
Further reading
The dos and don’ts of influencing policy: a systematic review of advice to academics
Scientific evidence and policy
One of the ways policymakers identify effective policies and interventions, and how best to implement them, is through scientific evidence. Yet those who produce scientific knowledge are often trained to communicate with fellow specialists and not with non-academic audiences. It is important for researchers and scientists engaged in policy-related work to develop the skills needed to effectively communicate the value of their research to policymakers.
Understanding the policy community
The policy process is complex, involving a range of actors within and outside government who play diverse roles in initiating, formulating, implementing, and evaluating policies. Communicators must identify the various stakeholders in the policy process and learn how to segment and analyse audiences that make up the policy community.
Clarifying the purposes of policy communication
The policy process involves a series of stages. Those who want to influence policy must first understand the policy cycle, the various purposes relating to each phase of the cycle, and the form of communication best suited to each purpose. This includes the different stages involved in the policy cycle, the process of policy communication (target, rationale, benefit, expected outcomes of communication, etc.), and how to identify the type of communication needed in the continuum of engagement (e.g. informing, consulting, collaborating, deciding, disseminating).
Understanding the communication needs of policy stakeholders
The uptake of research depends on several factors, including:
- The four key characteristics that make information useful to policy:
To help to solve problems
To be actionable
To have consequences
To be publicly accessible
The need to identify relevant scientific evidence to address questions raised in the policy space.
How to adapt scientific evidence to suit policymakers.
How to strengthen links between policy actors and those who want to share scientific evidence.
Techniques and tools of engagement
There are tactics and tools available to effectively engage audiences, ranging from those suited to face-to-face interactions (e.g. public, and private meetings, forums, festivals, town hall meetings, policy durbars, consultative group meetings, workshops) to mediated forms of communication (traditional media, websites, social media, etc). Effective communication must consider which platforms and tools to use in communicating scientific evidence to policymakers and other stakeholders. It is important to have communication strategies and plans, engagement techniques (e.g. planning and facilitating public consultations and debates, soliciting media coverage, convening press conferences), and the knowledge and skills required to produce press releases and policy documents such as policy briefs, memoranda, and communique.
Familiar challenges in policy communication
Getting research into policy and practice (GRIPP) requires scientists to communicate evidence to policymakers in ways that can lead to decisions and action. Not only must research be relevant, but the language of engagement must be appropriate. It is important to discuss barriers to effective policy communication including language/translation, cultural barriers, audience scepticism and the importance of compelling storytelling to drive home the message.
Further reading
The importance of policy change for addressing public health problems
Evidence-informed health policy: are we beginning to get there at last?
Informing policymakers
In this roundtable discussion, our colleagues talk about transparency when disseminating scientific data. They also discuss how data sharing can impact national and international decision-making.
Research and public health
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the importance of positive interaction between public health agencies and academia, as well as industry, journalism, and even unconventional information sources (e.g. social networks).
Countries, where good relationships between academia and public health agencies existed, took quicker and more effective resolutions during the pandemic, whereas those with less auspicious relationships based their decisions on non-scientific, often politically led opinions. For example, in Latin America (one of the regions in the world that were most affected by COVID-19), Uruguay involved academics in the early-pandemic strategies, by integrating universities and research centres into diagnosis, surveillance, and treatment assessments. This allowed them to control quickly COVID-19 transmission, reaching outstanding low levels of infections and mortality in 2020. In the same region, Uruguay´s neighbours Brazil and Argentina (that used a political, non-academic based approach) counted the infections in millions and the mortality in hundreds of thousands.
Indirect communication
Academia has an important role in training the public health workers that will be part of the public health agencies and health ministries. Education at undergraduate and postgraduate levels should be continuous to provide state-of-the-art tools to public health authorities in order for them to make good decisions. This also means that communication between academia and health agencies continues indirectly through education.
Another major role of academia in public health is to conduct research (basic and applied) that can be useful for decision-making. Even though public health authorities are responsible for taking decisions, they should be built on systematically acquired results. This type of indirect communication between academia and government health agencies should be encouraged, as research evidence is the most powerful instrument to fully understand and try to solve a problem that affects the general population.
Finally, academia should engage with the community, to understand public health problems and effectively communicate science. However, one of the main challenges faced by researchers, and public health officials, during the current pandemic is effective communication with the public, so that the reasons behind public health policy are understood.
Direct communication
Communication between academia and ministries of health often develops from already existing contacts and relationships. It is vital that trustworthy communication is established prior to a public health emergency (such as the COVID-19 pandemic) as, without bidirectional interaction, important information may not be properly communicated. Trust is the base of any communication, and reliance depends on the interlocutors and their communication lines. For example, is more difficult to build effective communication channels in countries with weak public health institutions that change authorities repeatedly, compared with those with long-term strategies. Likewise, in countries with a weak academic culture, it will be difficult for their public health agencies to find a continuous and reliable interlocutor.
Academics advise public health authorities and policymakers on up-to-date evidence and data interpretation, and, additionally, they can also offer personal opinions based on experience. However, authorities must recognize when they are getting one or the other. Information provided by academics must be transparent and free of conflicts of interest, and it also should be open to public scrutiny in terms of getting different expert opinions when it is considered necessary. Public health agencies also need to be open to receiving advice, especially during a public health emergency, as this will facilitate academic work such as research and education.
The last responsibility of academia is to give feedback (and criticism when necessary) on the decisions taken by public health agencies and ministries of health. Academia plays an important role in seeking evidence to determine if a decision was taken accurately or not. That was probably the most difficult task for researchers during the COVID-19 pandemic, as when criticised, some authorities ignored academics, blocked their research work, or even limited their free speech. It is undeniable that academia played an important role during the pandemic, however, most of its valuable work was diluted due to not interacting successfully with public health agencies.
Health policy lessons from COVID-19
The best way to learn how to engage with policymakers is to listen to the experiences of scientists who have worked closely with them and from policymakers themselves. Read below the answers from experienced professionals.
What are the main challenges in communicating with policymakers?
In countries where political crises are not uncommon and institutions are weak, a big challenge is the constant change of policymakers, authorities and civil servants. Researchers might describe detailed scientific information when engaging with policymakers, which might not be useful to the policymaker as they are more concerned with actionable research that can be translated into policy; so knowledge transfer has to be strengthened between the two sectors.
Another big challenge is that in several countries in Latin America, there is no formal system for scientific advising (this is no formal and regular communication channels between academia and policymakers), which has resulted in a lack of trust between these groups. As a result, in countries where this is an issue, engagement with policymakers has to be approached differently.
The biggest challenge the scientists and public health professionals face is establishing effective communication with authorities because it also depends on them. This means that even if you are willing to collaborate, and policymakers don’t accept suggestions, communication won’t be possible. For that reason, authorities need to understand they can ask for advice from researchers, especially when they lack the necessary expertise within their authority.
There are key challenges in engaging with policy stakeholders:
Difficulty in getting approvals, and administrative burdens
Stakeholders’ limited capacity and infrastructure to collaborate in research
Different priorities than researchers
High turnover among staff at stakeholder institutions
Stakeholder time constraints
What are the key learnings from interactions with policymakers during the pandemic?
As evidence changes over time, conveying how this may affect policy decisions is crucial. It’s important to communicate that the information you shared with them is the most current evidence but can change over time, and the advice might need to be revised periodically.
Lessons learnt from the management of pandemic crises in advisory boards include:
The strongest engagements were those where the scientists were able to provide rapid technical advice to policy stakeholders with whom they already had an existing relationship.
Bringing together multiple stakeholders for a single meeting was very challenging because stakeholders were over-committed.
Stakeholders need engagement and advice during an emergency in a very fast timeframe - which provides a considerable burden for researchers in the emergency response.
Stakeholders preferred to engage in short, online meetings.
Clarity around the benefits and costs of implementing a policy can help communications. This should be balanced with discussions about the costs and consequences of not action on the evidence.
It’s helpful if interactions with policymakers are part of wider/general collaboration framework. However, many government organisations will require signing Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs), collaboration agreements or some sort of formal link.
What is the advice to other researchers in communicating with policymakers?
Policy engagement is a communication exercise, and it is most effective when it is two-way. This means that researchers need to provide opportunities for policy stakeholders to engage with them and be willing to listen and respond.
Policy stakeholders tend to ask to be involved or informed about research at very early stages. They do not want to dictate the research agenda, but they do want to be sure that research is designed in ways that can produce useful outcomes for policy. The best way to do this is to find ways to build consultation into research throughout the research lifecycle.
Partnering with civil society organisations and advocacy groups to work on the specific subject is recommended. This can help have a stronger message delivery mechanism. Identifying local champions can boost the delivery of these messages.
Another helpful way to maintain the engagement is to establish a structure to feed into policymaking (e.g. establish annual meetings or spaces for regular dialogue with policymakers and government committees).
As a final piece of advice, try to give the stakeholders key points of action to work with. Try not to load them with vast amounts of evidence, summarise findings and suggest solutions instead.
Further reading
Ten tips for scientists to connect science and policymaking
Top 20 things scientists need to know about policymaking
Impacting public health policy
Public health policy requires individuals from many disciplines to collect as much useful data as possible, analyse and interpret it, and communicate it to decision-makers who will then use it to set government policies.
Under ordinary circumstances, setting these policies is a balancing act between competing interests; scientists, civil servants and government officials must work together to find solutions that are both effective and acceptable to the public.
The COVID-19 pandemic crashed into this finely balanced system with little warning. New people, institutions and data needed to be brought urgently into the policy process. In the United Kingdom, this included an unprecedented level of genomic pathogen surveillance data to complement information about case testing, hospital capacity, and deaths. From very early in the pandemic, the UK used its strength in pathogen genomics to build a national surveillance system that could detect new mutations in the virus and track their spread geographically. This genomic surveillance swiftly provided insights into the early evolution of the virus, but it wasn’t clear how these discoveries could meaningfully influence policy. In the summer of 2020, local clusters of highly similar genomes were observed from “superspreader” events during an otherwise quiet time in the pandemic in the UK, but because the sequences were only available a few weeks after the events occurred, there was no opportunity for public health action.
The value of genomic surveillance in the UK became apparent in December 2020, when an otherwise unexplained increase in cases in Kent, in South East England, was discovered to be due to a new variant (later dubbed the ‘Alpha’ variant) of the Coronavirus. The team of academic and public health scientists who discovered the new variant alerted the broader pandemic science policy community. Within ten days, an unimaginably short time in the usual process of scientific discovery, the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, imposed strict restrictions on social mixing during the Christmas holiday in large parts of England. By early January 2021, it was clear that the Alpha variant had spread widely in the UK, and a second national lockdown was required.
The Alpha variant, along with the simultaneous discovery of the Beta variant in South Africa, moved genomic surveillance from a niche interest among scientists to one of the most prominent data streams in pandemic policymaking. Would new variants spread so easily that lockdowns couldn’t contain them? Would they cause more severe disease? Could they evade the protection offered by vaccines?
The UK Health Security Agency needed to coordinate these data to provide timely, understandable, actionable input for policymakers. They convened a Variant Technical Group to serve as a regular forum for academic and public health scientists to use genomic surveillance data to improve the modelling of future waves, evaluate new variants in laboratory tests, and determine their effect on vaccines. The group regularly published technical reports to ensure scientists and policymakers around the world had access to the latest research. A number of public-facing websites were created to share anonymised genomic surveillance data in near real-time, thus allowing members of the press and public to see the new variant data that was being used to influence policy on travel, local restrictions and vaccine and treatment roll-out. This public focus also led to active (and sometimes vitriolic) debates on social media about policy responses to new variants of the virus. Organisations like the Science Media Centre helped to coordinate academics unaccustomed to that level of attention to share information so the press could accurately report on new developments.
The COVID-19 pandemic presented a unique challenge to science communication for public health policy. This included, for the first time, building a genomic surveillance system for a new pathogen, continuously improving the speed and interpretability of the intelligence it produced, and creating new channels of communication from scientists to policymakers. While created in emergency circumstances, there is now an opportunity to build a sustainable way for genomic surveillance to aid public health policy.
Further reading
COVID-19 Government response tracker
How we can be prepared
In this video, Christine, Emma, Richard and Thanat review what resources were in place before the COVID-19 emergency and how we can apply what has been developed so far for the next public health threats.
COVID-19 in the European Union
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the European Union (EU) has worked with its member states to protect the health and well-being of EU citizens. Nevertheless, EU institutions have limited authority in the health system of each member state, as, instead, their primary role is to make recommendations and coordinate joint action.
In March 2020, four priorities to guide the EU’s emergency response to the COVID-19 pandemic were determined. These included:
Limiting the spread of the virus
Ensuring the provision of medical equipment, particularly masks and respirators
Promoting research for treatments and vaccines
Tackling the socio-economic consequences of the pandemic
In order to limit the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the EU’s external borders were temporarily closed and non-essential travel to the EU was restricted.
To meet the need for emergency medical equipment, in March 2020, the EU created a reserve of medical equipment which could be quickly mobilised in emergencies. At the same time, the EU enabled its member states to participate in joint public procurement tenders for protective gear, ventilators and testing kits. The EU’s Emergency Response Coordination Centre (ERCC) then, via its EU Civil Protection Mechanism, processed requests and coordinated the distribution of equipment and support to the countries which needed it most. The EU has also coordinated with European industry to increase production and has regulated the export of key supplies from the EU to third countries.
Furthermore, to promote research for treatments and vaccines, research funds and financial support were deployed to develop treatments and vaccines. The European COVID-19 Data Platform was launched to enable the rapid collection and sharing of available research data.
The EU Vaccines Strategy
The development and distribution of safe and effective vaccines against COVID-19 represented a cornerstone of the EU’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The EU Vaccines Strategy was presented on 17 June 2020 to accelerate the development, manufacturing and deployment of vaccines against COVID-19. The EU coordinated a joint effort to secure the production and delivery of a sufficient quantity of vaccines to its member states, who received the vaccines under the same conditions and at the same time. The COVID-19 vaccination campaigns started on 27 December 2020 across the Union. By December 2022, eight out of ten adults in the EU population (82%) were fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The European Medicines Agency has so far authorised seven COVID-19 vaccines for use within the EU.
Global cooperation
On 4 May 2020, the Coronavirus Global Response Initiative was launched, following the global call for action launched by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 24 April 2020. This initiative aimed to make COVID-19 treatment, tests and vaccines available worldwide. Despite the name, the Coronavirus Global Response also has the broader aims of strengthening health systems everywhere and supporting economic recovery in the world’s most fragile regions and communities.
On 18 September 2020, the European Commission confirmed its participation in the COVAX Facility for equitable access to affordable COVID-19 vaccines. COVAX is part of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, a global collaboration to accelerate the development, production, and equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines. Team Europe (formed by the EU and its member states) is one of the lead donors of COVAX.
Pandemic preparedness
The European Commission established the Health Emergency and Response Authority (HERA) to tackle all areas of health preparedness, including detection, prevention, research, international cooperation, response, investment, and the fight against disinformation.
In December 2022, HERA and WHO launched a new partnership to boost capacities at national, regional, and global levels for better preparedness for and response to health emergencies. Within this partnership, HERA will fund four global initiatives:
Supporting the scaling up of national capacities for SARS-CoV-2 and emerging pathogens detection, including genomic surveillance in Africa
The COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) to ensure a successful global effort to develop and facilitate access to technologies to fight COVID-19
Epidemic and pandemic intelligence, including access to and sharing of data and analytics through the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Preparedness
Research to address antimicrobial resistance (AMR)
Through this programme, HERA and WHO will strengthen global capacities to detect, prevent, and respond to global health threats by providing information, capacities, and tools against health emergencies.
Further reading
The EU’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic
5 ways the EU and member states work together against COVID-19
COVID-19: research and vaccines
The biggest lessons learnt
The COVID-19 pandemic is remarkable for not only how fast the disease spread around the globe, but also how fast existing technologies were repurposed and new approaches were developed to tackle the disease.
In this video, Prof Christine Carrington, Dr Emma Hodcroft, Dr Richard Orton and Dr Thanat Chookajorn share the main lessons they learnt from COVID-19.
Resources
Viral biology: ViralZone
Viral taxonomy: International Committee on
Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV)
Real-time tracking of pathogen evolution: NextStrain
SARS-CoV-2 Lineages nomenclature: Pango
Genomic data sharing: GISAID
Cloud Infrastructure for Big Data Microbial Bioinformatics: CLIMB
Podcasts:
WHO
Science in 5
This week in
Microbiology
This week in Virology
