WHO’s New Pathogens Prioritization Framework
In 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO), at the request of almost 200 member states, developed its first Research & Development (R&D) Blueprint for Action to Prevent Epidemics focusing on a number of specific severe infectious diseases for which no medical countermeasures (MCMs) were available. Launched for the first time in 2017 and updated in 2018, the Blueprint recently underwent a major makeover made public on the 30th of July 2024.
Now known as the WHO Blueprint for Epidemics, the new framework underscores the necessity of global collaboration in R&D to prevent and protect the world from outbreaks and demonstrates a significant strategic shift towards a broader family- and prototype pathogen-based approach to accelerate the development of MCMs.
Implication for NAVIPP
Designed in 2023, the EU-funded NAVIPP project had already adopted a similar strategy to enable and accelerate the development of broad‑spectrum antivirals, a desired type of countermeasure to be deployed early during an outbreak. In a fashion very similar to that of the WHO, NAVIPP chose to focus on entire viral families that are now identified as high priority in the WHO Blueprint for Epidemics, including the Corona-, Filo-, Flavi-, Nairo-, and Paramyxoviridae families.
With its topical approach, the project ambitions to advance pandemic preparedness research by implementing a multi-faceted strategic R&D and clinical roadmap for identifying, optimizing, investigating and validating broad-spectrum antivirals against these families. An international collaboration of twelve expert partners from both the public and private sectors from nine countries has made such a comprehensive approach possible and will contribute to achieving key goals of the WHO R&D Blueprint for Epidemics.