WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence sets a goal of detecting new outbreaks within 24 hours

12 October 2026

The WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence launched a new five-year strategy covering 2026 to 2030, at the World Health Summit in Berlin. The strategy sets the goal that by 2030 every country should be able to detect and understand emerging health threats within 24 hours of their appearance. The Hub was created in 2021 with foundational support from the German Government in response to gaps exposed by COVID-19, and has worked with 160 WHO Member States, 190 partner organizations and thousands of scientists and policymakers. The strategy rests on five priority initiatives: Epidemic Intelligence from Open Sources, which uses artificial intelligence to scan thousands of public sources daily and has over 4,000 experts and is used by over 125 Member States and 30 regional and international organizations; the International Pathogen Surveillance Network for genomic sequencing and bioinformatics; the Collaboratory, which connects more than 2,000 modelling and data science experts; the Collaborative Surveillance Initiative, implemented in more than 83 countries on a One Health approach; and a new Digital Enablers for Public Health Intelligence Initiative. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus launched the strategy, and Germany's Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Health, Georg Kippels, was present.