Honouring the health humanitarians working to create a safer world

Collaborative surveillance: detecting and identifying threats to public health, together

Building surveillance capacity and networks founded on trust and transparency is crucial to detecting health threats, bringing information together, analysing it, and communicating it in a timely way for a prompt response. Information flowing from many different sectors, such as human or animal health, or the security sector, is essential to form the evidence base for both emergency response and preparedness.

Clinical diagnostic laboratories play a vital role in health care by detecting, confirming, and tracking health-related events, providing clinicians with important data for timely medical intervention and health-care policy-making.

The ongoing conflict in Ukraine has exacerbated challenges, such as the spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), and has significantly impacted clinical diagnostic laboratories by limiting access to necessary equipment and materials, causing staffing shortages and damaging laboratory facilities.

WHO aims to strengthen laboratory networks to ensure timely and accurate disease diagnosis, enhance capacity-building by providing training and resources to laboratory staff, improve infrastructure by upgrading laboratory facilities and equipment to handle more complex diagnostics, and ensure emergency response capabilities to address health emergencies, including disease outbreaks and biosecurity threats.

“During the period of the full-scale invasion, we built a new bacteriology laboratory and restructured the work of the microbiology department,” says Yevheniia Fillipova, Head of the Clinical Diagnostic Laboratory at Mechnikov Hospital, Dnipro, Ukraine. “WHO helped us with this. They also provided the necessary equipment and consumables and conducted essential training on the hospital premises at our request.”

Community resilience and protection: co-creating a health response with communities at the centre

Recent emergencies have underscored the central role of communities in managing risks and mitigating their impact. Community-based organizations and individuals are crucial health partners, often reaching the most vulnerable and building trust. This is particularly vital in humanitarian emergencies, where lives are abruptly disrupted and uncertainty prevails due to conflicts or natural disasters.

In emergencies, response interventions must fully leverage interpersonal relationships. Access to affordable health care, especially for chronic conditions, is the foremost health need for many affected individuals. Given their heightened vulnerability, these individuals need a "human anchor" to access and trust services and care. Cultural mediators, health-care and social workers, and community members play an instrumental role in enhancing access to services, particularly for displaced populations. They listen to perceptions and concerns, provide health information clearly and understandably, and ensure health services align with patient needs.

WHO has been working with communities across the WHO European Region to co-design health responses that build trust in health systems, enhance access to services, and save lives. With their focus on resilience and protection, community workers and influencers – including civil society organizations, religious and community leaders, health and social workers, community groups and volunteers – are an extended arm of WHO’s emergency preparedness and response efforts. Trusted by the community they belong to, they offer a range of support, from guidance on registering for health services to disease prevention advice and services.

Zara Petrosyan is a social worker, formerly from the Nagorno-Karabakh region. She came to Armenia alongside over 115 000 other refugees in September 2023. Now she provides daily support to over 50 refugees and is one of 30 social workers who have been trained by WHO on risk communication, community engagement and infodemic management.

“Many displaced people facing health issues do not know what services are available and rely on social workers for guidance. We aim to understand their challenges, identify their primary concerns, and work collaboratively to find solutions,” Zara explains. “I am available 24/7 for the families I serve, to provide information on how to access free health services.”

Safe and scalable care: creating an agile workforce that can flex in emergencies

To respond to emergencies rapidly and effectively, countries must develop and maintain national surge capacities, which encompass both a competent emergency health-care workforce and preparedness and response infrastructure. Moreover, a dual-track approach should ensure that increasing demands on the health workforce during emergencies do not impact the continuity of essential health services for patients with chronic conditions.

National Emergency Medical Teams (EMTs) are one example of scalable care; they can be deployed within countries or across borders to offer on-the-spot support in the immediate aftermath of disasters. They can also share emergency-specific expertise, which strengthens local capacity to face current and future crises. Where health infrastructure has been damaged, EMTs can often enable the continuity of the national response, providing resources, such as medical shelters and medication as well as additional personnel. Rapid Response Teams (RRTs) and Rapid Response Mobile Laboratories (RRMLs) are also invaluable in boosting mobile diagnostic capacities in public health emergencies and in clinical and research settings and ensuring that existing capacities are not overwhelmed.

WHO's Emergency Medical Teams (EMT) initiative aims to improve the timeliness and quality of health services provided by national and international EMTs and enhance the capacity of national health systems in leading the activation and coordination of rapid response capacities in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, outbreak and/or any other emergency.

“Nobody knows what will happen tomorrow. We are vulnerable to earthquakes, we also have plenty of natural disasters like floods and landslides, so that is why we need to prepare for any disaster. Whenever it happens, we will need to be ready,” says Dr Azat Botaliev, Head of the Medical Department, Emergency Situations of the Kyrgyz Republic.

Access to medical countermeasures: ensuring the equitable availability of products that keep people safer

Countermeasures are the specific products required during an emergency response, ranging from supplies as basic as oxygen to newly developed diagnostics or vaccines that are part of the fight against emerging diseases. To ensure collective security, collective access is crucial, not just to physical supplies, but to intellectual property and technology, too.

In the Republic of Moldova, WHO has been working together with health authorities and partners to ensure equity in immunization. The Ministry of Health, with the support of the National Agency for Public Health and the WHO Country Office in Moldova, monitor refugee accommodation centres, where people are particularly vulnerable to outbreaks, and conduct information activities on vaccination.

Brenda Rodita and Mihail Bucur, along with their 3 daughters, Angelina, Victoria and Leila, are among the thousands of families who fled from the war in Ukraine to Moldova.

“When the first cases of measles were detected in our refugee centre, we were very scared. The family doctor explained to us that the vaccines would protect us from falling ill and developing serious forms of the disease. We immediately understood that vaccination was the best way to protect ourselves,” says Mihail.

“With regards to health emergency preparedness and response, focusing on countermeasures is critical, because inequity comes into play so quickly. Who gets it, who pays for it, who gets it first versus who gets it second,” says Dr Catherine Smallwood, Senior Emergency Officer and Programme Manager (Emergency Operations), WHO/Europe. “It really plays into the friction between decisions that national leaders need to make for their own populations versus decisions that we need to make for our one humanity across the world.”

Emergency coordination: acting together to prepare and protect

Working collaboratively within and across borders to manage emergencies is essential, so that decisions can be taken promptly with a clear chain of command. Establishing strong collaborative mechanisms in advance of emergencies saves crucial time and resources. Developing comparable emergency protocols and practices can prevent bottlenecks and misunderstandings.

A key component of this preparedness is the implementation of National Action Plans for Health Security (NAPHS). NAPHS are critical in ensuring that countries have comprehensive, multisectoral capacity-building strategies to prevent, detect, and respond to public health threats. By aligning national efforts with international health regulations and frameworks, these plans foster coordinated responses across borders, enhancing the effectiveness of humanitarian interventions. In the context of humanitarian work, NAPHS not only strengthen national capacities but can also ensure that vulnerable populations receive timely and adequate protection during emergencies.

Another example of emergency coordination is the Pan-European Network for Disease Control (NDC), conceived as a network of networks that will play a vital role in facilitating collaboration and knowledge-sharing and promoting common standards for disease control in the Region.

The core mission of the NDC is to bolster the preparedness of the Region by proactively identifying and mitigating potential risks before they escalate into regional or global threats. By facilitating collaboration and knowledge sharing in the Region, it aims to facilitate a unified approach to disease management across Europe.

‘’As an epidemiologist, I firmly believe that, by working together on preparedness and response, we can significantly reduce the impact of pandemics. The Network plays a pivotal role in strengthening our ability to swiftly and cohesively address humanitarian challenges as they arise,” says Dr Zeynep Ozge Ozguler, Early Warning and Response Unit Supervisor, General Directorate of Public Health, Türkiye Ministry of Health.