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WHO, Germany launch new global hub for pandemic and epidemic intelligence
The WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence will be a global platform for pandemic and epidemic intelligence, creating shared and networked access to vital multi-sectoral data, driving innovations in data analytics and building the communities of practice needed to predict, prevent, detect, prepare for and respond to worldwide health threats.
The WHO Hub will be a new global collaboration of countries and partners worldwide, driving innovations to increase availability and linkage of diverse data; develop tools and predictive models for risk analysis; and to monitor disease control measures and infodemics.
ILLUSTRATION: ADAM SIMPSON/HEART AGENCY
Angela Rasmussen is as outspoken a scientist as you are likely to find. And this year she spoke out a lot. One of many researchers who became celebrities during the COVID-19 pandemic, the virologist at Georgetown University was quoted in hundreds of articles, appeared as an expert on TV and radio, and took to Twitter to put news about mutations or reinfections into context and to call radiologist and top U.S. government adviser Scott Atlas a “gaslighting motherf -er.”
But Rasmussen s messages did not resonate with everyone even in her own family. Split along political fault lines in the Trump era, some of her relatives no longer speak to one another, she says. When one of her aunts ended up in intensive care with COVID-19 in the summer, Rasmussen only found out because a cousin texted her, worried that others in the aunt s household did not feel the need to quarantine and get tested. “Guess what: They all had COVID,” Rasmussen says.
Illustration of the back office of the Strategic Health Operations Centre (SHOC) at WHO Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, on 11 December 2020.
In order to minimize the risk of introducing COVID-19 into the headquarters premises, WHO continues to ensure that personnel have access to a safe and healthy work environment, and that all appropriate measures are in place to minimize the risk to the workforce. Ensuring the safety of all WHO staff and their families requires a new way of working on WHO campus.
SWITZERLAND / GERMANY The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Federal Republic of Germany will establish a new global hub for pandemic and epidemic intelligence, data, surveillance and analytics innovation. The Hub, based in Berlin and working with partners around the world, will lead innovations in data analytics across the largest network of global data to predict, prevent, detect prepare for and respond to pandemic and epidemic risks worldwide.
An international hub for pandemic control is to open in Berlin to ensure better preparedness and transparency in the fight against likely future global.