International Pathogen Surveillance Network announces first grant recipients to better understand disease threats

The World Health Organization (WHO) and partners have announced 10 projects that will receive nearly US$2 million in grants to improve capacity in pathogen genome surveillance.

The Catalytic Grant Fund was established by the International Pathogen Surveillance Network (IPSN) to support partners from low- and middle-income countries to build their capacity in pathogen genome analysis. This technology analyzes the genetic code of viruses, bacteria and other disease-causing organisms to understand, combined with other data, how easily they spread and how sick they can make people. This data enables scientists and public health teams to monitor and respond to infectious disease threats, support the development of vaccines and treatments, and empower countries to make faster decisions.

The fund is hosted by the United Nations Foundation and supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and Wellcome.

“The IPSN Catalytic Grant Fund has incredible potential to expand pathogen genome surveillance for everyone, as we are already seeing through the first round of grants,” said Sara Hersey, Director of Collaborative Intelligence at the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence. “We are eager to support this work, which plays a key role in pandemic and epidemic prevention worldwide.”

“Recipients of the IPSN Catalytic Grant will accelerate the benefits of genomic surveillance of pathogens in low- and middle-income settings, as well as explore new applications for genomic surveillance, such as wastewater surveillance,” said Manisha Bhinge, vice president of the Health Initiative. at the Rockefeller Foundation. “Pandemics and epidemics are still a global threat, further exacerbated by climate change. There is an urgent need for equitable access to these tools and capabilities to protect lives in vulnerable communities.”

One of the recipients, the American University of Beirut, will use wastewater monitoring to study the spread of disease among refugee populations, ensuring that people can quickly receive the care and support they need in the context of migration. Another grantee, the Institut Pasteur in Laos, will use the funding to develop new methods to monitor bird flu in live bird markets, an often overlooked but vital environment for millions of people around the world.

“If we want to protect vulnerable populations from the devastating effects of disease, we must first better understand how these pathogens spread, develop and cause disease. These projects, developed in-country and tailored to local priorities, will generate new insights, knowledge and evidence to help monitor global pathogen trends and make evidence-based decisions to implement effective interventions,” said Titus Divala, Interim Head of Epidemiology and Epidemiology at welcome

The Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil will use the funding to develop an open source bioinformatics tool that can be used to perform offline analyses. The tool will be tested in Latin America with the potential for global use, especially in low-resource settings.

“SARS-CoV-2 and subsequent regional disease outbreaks have highlighted the importance of access to genomic surveillance tools in all countries. IPSN's catalytic investment will generate data and innovative methods to support much-needed scale-up in LMICs,” said Simon Harris of Gates Foundation.

The grantees were announced at the IPSN Global Partners Forum held in Bangkok, Thailand, November 21-22. The event was jointly organized by the WHO Regional Offices for South-East Asia and the Western Pacific and the Center for Pathogen Genomics at the Doherty Institute in Australia.

The second round of catalytic grants will be available to IPSN members in 2025.

The IPSN is a new global network of pathogen genomics stakeholders, brought together by the WHO Pandemic Hub, to accelerate progress in the implementation of pathogen genomics and improve public health decision-making. The IPSN envisions a world in which every country has equal access to permanent capacity for genomic sequencing and analytics as part of its public health surveillance system. It aims to create a mutually supportive global network of genomic surveillance actors that strengthens and accelerates the work of its members to improve access and equity.

Background on the WHO Pandemic Hub and Epidemic Intelligence

As part of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, the WHO Pandemic Hub facilitates global collaboration between multi-sector partners supporting countries and stakeholders to address future pandemics and epidemic risks with better access to data, better analytical capacities and better tools and insights for decision-making. With the support of the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany, the WHO Pandemic Hub was established in September 2021 in Berlin, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has shown worldwide weaknesses in the way countries detect, monitor and manage threats to public health.

Background of the Center for Pathogen Genomics

The Center for Pathogen Genomics at the Doherty Institute, University of Melbourne, is an academic and training center supporting new collaborations for translational research, genomics-based infectious disease surveillance, and capacity building and training across the Asia-Pacific region. The center supports a portfolio of world-leading experts in pathogen genomics, public health, surveillance, bioinformatics, research and capacity building and training, with years of experience in using cutting-edge technologies to address infectious diseases of national and global importance.

Full list of first IPSN catalytic recipients: