Africa: WHO Pandemic Hub Sets Ambitious Goal to Detect New Outbreaks Within 24 Hours

What the report says

The World Health Organization has unveiled a new five-year strategy for its Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence, setting an ambition for countries to detect and understand emerging health threats within 24 hours by 2030. The plan, reported by Nigeria Health Watch and distributed by AllAfrica, frames faster detection as a central part of global health security because earlier identification can help officials contain outbreaks before they grow into epidemics or spread across borders.

WHO presented the strategy at the opening of the World Health Summit in Berlin, where Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the Hub has become an important part of the global health security system since its creation. Germany’s Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Health, Georg Kippels, was present at the event, reflecting the German government’s early support for the Hub. WHO says the center was established in 2021 with backing from Germany after the COVID-19 pandemic exposed major gaps in outbreak detection and response.

According to the report, the Hub has already worked with 160 WHO member states, 190 partner organizations, and thousands of scientists and policymakers. Its next phase will focus on five initiatives, including open-source epidemic intelligence, pathogen surveillance, modeling and data science, collaborative surveillance, and new digital tools for sharing and analyzing public health data. The announcement matters because it highlights WHO’s push to strengthen national systems, partnerships, and use of technology to improve readiness for future health emergencies.