Ryan emphasizes that the lack of information or data is the biggest problem. Co-working with partners is important. "We felt that we fell too much into the response mode, response, response, response, we were not ahead enough", explains Ryan. "Global work offers a huge opportunity in this field." Dr. Boris Pavlin adds that the outbreak response is more successful the earlier it happens. "We collect all signals and put them on a platform", explains Pavlin. But they also share this information and ask for more information on their event information site. "Every event starts slow - but they can grow huge."
WHO's Health Emergency Information and Risk Assesment department seeks with its strategy to harmonize surveillance activities across the organization to improve the speed of detection of health events.