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By Mercy Kachenge
Nairobi, Kenya: The World Health Organization (WHO) has set an ambitious target for every country to detect and understand emerging health threats within 24 hours of their appearance by 2030, as it steps up global efforts to prevent outbreaks from developing into major epidemics and pandemics.
The new five-year strategy will strengthen disease surveillance, genomic sequencing and artificial intelligence systems to help countries identify outbreaks before they escalate.
The target is at the centre of a new five-year strategy for the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence, launched on October 12, 2026, to strengthen countries’ capacity to identify emerging diseases, share information and coordinate responses across borders.
The strategy builds on lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, which exposed gaps in global disease surveillance and highlighted the importance of identifying and responding to infectious disease threats before they spread widely.
Speaking at the opening of the World Health Summit in Berlin, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the Hub had become an important component of the global health security system since its establishment in 2021.
“This strategy will bring governments and partners together around a shared goal of enabling countries to respond rapidly to health threats before they develop into major crises” he said.
Established with initial support from the German Government, the Hub has worked with 160 WHO Member States, 190 partner organisations and thousands of scientists and policymakers over the past five years.
Its work has included identifying potential epidemic threats, supporting pathogen identification and genomic sequencing, and strengthening the use of scientific information to guide public health responses.
Under the new strategy, WHO will prioritise five initiatives designed to improve how countries detect, analyse and respond to emerging health risks.
One of the key initiatives is Epidemic Intelligence from Open Sources (EIOS), an artificial intelligence-powered system that scans thousands of publicly available sources daily to identify signals that could indicate emerging health threats.
The system brings together a global community of more than 4,000 experts and is used by over 125 WHO Member States and 30 regional and international organisations.
By identifying potential warning signs across publicly available information, the initiative aims to help health authorities investigate possible threats earlier and make more timely decisions.
Another priority is the International Pathogen Surveillance Network, which strengthens genomic sequencing and bioinformatics capabilities to help scientists identify and understand pathogens responsible for emerging diseases.
Such capabilities are important in informing the development of diagnostic tests, treatments and vaccines when new infectious threats emerge.
The strategy will also expand the role of the Collaboratory, a network of more than 2,000 experts in modelling and data science who can be mobilised to support analysis when new threats arise.
Through modelling and data analysis, experts can help public health authorities interpret emerging information and understand potential outbreak developments.
WHO is also advancing its Collaborative Surveillance Initiative, which is being implemented in more than 83 countries. The initiative supports national institutions, health systems and workforces in detecting threats through a One Health approach that recognises the connections between human, animal and environmental health.
The fifth initiative, Digital Enablers for Public Health Intelligence, is a new programme intended to strengthen secure digital systems that allow countries and partners to share, analyse and use public health data while supporting the responsible adoption of artificial intelligence.
The emphasis on secure information-sharing reflects the need for countries to work across institutional and national boundaries when responding to threats that can spread beyond their points of origin.
However, achieving the 2030 target will require sustained investment, reliable partnerships and cooperation across sectors and disciplines, according to WHO.
The organisation says the Hub will continue to serve as a platform for bringing partners together, supporting innovation and mobilising expertise and resources to strengthen preparedness for health emergencies.
For countries with limited surveillance infrastructure, achieving the target will depend on their ability to develop the systems, technical expertise and institutional capacity needed to detect and interpret health threats rapidly.
The strategy therefore places country-level capabilities at the centre of global health security, with the aim of ensuring that every country can identify emerging risks and act before outbreaks escalate.
As the WHO Hub enters its next five-year phase, the 2030 ambition marks a shift towards faster, more coordinated and data-driven outbreak detection. Its success will depend not only on technological advances, but also on sustained financing, effective cooperation and countries’ ability to translate early warning signals into timely public health action.
