Parliamentary State Secretary Georg Kippels,
World Health Summit President Professor Dr Axel Pries,
World Health Summit CEO Carsten Schicker,
Charité CEO Professor Dr Heyo Kroemer,
President of the Robert Koch Institute, Professor Lars Schaade,
Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,
Guten Abend! It’s an honour to be here.
In our troubled and divided world, it is always a joy to be among friends, and especially friends from the global health family.
So I thank Germany and the World Health Summit for bringing our family together.
I also thank Germany for its long and strong support for global health and WHO.
Nothing symbolizes that support more than the fact that Germany hosts part of WHO right here in Berlin: the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence.
The story of the Hub began on 23 October 2020, at the height of the pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic, with an urgent Zoom call with Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Our conversation centred on a fundamental truth: viruses move fast, but health data must move even faster.
One of the key lessons of the pandemic was the need to strengthen the world’s ability to detect threats faster.
The WHO Hub is the answer to that lesson.
After months of intensive planning, the blueprint was finalized in May 2021. And on 1 September 2021, I had the honour of opening the Hub’s doors with Chancellor Merkel, right here in Berlin.
With a founding investment of US$ 100&bsp;million from the Federal Republic of Germany, we set out to break down silos and build “collaborative intelligence” to predict, detect and prevent health emergencies before they escalate.
Five years later, the Hub has grown from an ambitious early-warning concept into a fully operational global anchor for health security.
Its work now spans more than 160 countries and more than 190 partner organizations.
Through shared data, scientific collaboration and innovation, it is helping to make the world a safer place.
For example, through the Epidemic Intelligence from Open Sources platform, which uses artificial intelligence to scan the world’s information for early warning signs, more than 129 countries and 35 multinational organizations can access real-time threat detection;
Through the International Pathogen Surveillance Network, nearly 360 partners in over 110 countries are tracking the evolution of pathogens in real time, including by scaling up genomic surveillance in low- and middle-income countries;
Through the Collaboratory, we are linking thousands of data scientists and public health analysts across dozens of countries, both physically and digitally;
And when the world first learned of the current Ebola epidemic in the DRC, the WHO Hub convened its global network of modellers to publish the first estimates of the outbreak’s scale within four days.
In just five years, the WHO Hub has proved its worth, but it’s only just beginning.
Tonight we are launching our new Hub 2030 Strategy.
Our ambition is for the Hub to enable every country to detect and understand any new health threat within 24 hours of its emergence.
To get there, we will build on trusted digital foundations and harness new tools, including AI-powered simulation, to turn early signals into early action.
We owe this milestone to many.
Once again, I thank Germany for its steadfast commitment and leadership, as well as our founding partners, the Robert Koch Institute and Charité.
And I thank the experts across our global network, whose tireless work turned a Zoom call into five years of life-saving progress.
The lesson of the last five years is clear.
In a connected world, health security cannot be built country by country.
It must be built together.
The next pandemic will not ask for our passports, our politics or our permission.
The question is whether we will be ready before it arrives.
That is the purpose of the work we celebrate tonight.
Thank you all once again. I wish you a productive and inspiring World Health Summit.
Thank you.
