WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has declared that the increase of mpox, formerly called monkeypox, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and a number of other African nations constitutes a health emergency of international concern. Global research must be strengthened and accelerated to prepare for future pandemics, warned the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) at the Global Pandemic Preparedness Summit 2024 on 1 August in Rio de Janeiro. They advocated for a broader research strategy, as outlined in a new WHO R&D Blueprint for Epidemics report, including entire families of human-infecting pathogens ' not just those with known pandemic risk ' and using prototype pathogens to develop adaptable knowledge and tools. "This framework will help steer and coordinate research into entire pathogen families, a strategy that aims to bolster the world's ability to swiftly respond to unforeseen variants,...
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