This meeting was organized as a quadripartite effort including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), World Health Organization (WHO), the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Co-organizers of the meeting were the Public Health Authority and the Ministry of Health in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).
Background
Since its identification in KSA in 2012, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) has continued to pose a significant public health, health security and economic threat to the global community. Typical of an emerging zoonotic pathogen, MERS-CoV has an animal reservoir–the dromedary camel–in which the virus causes little or no disease signs. To date, more than 2,600 cases of human infection have been reported to WHO, predominantly from countries in the Arabian Peninsula, and cases have been exported to all regions of the globe. MERS-CoV is one of three high-impact, zoonotic coronaviruses that have emerged in recent years and is included in the WHO list of pathogens with epidemic and pandemic potential, prioritized for research and development (R&D) in emergency contexts.
Over the past
decade, FAO, WHO, and WOAH have regularly brought together public health
and animal health experts from affected and at-risk countries, academic
scientists and subject matter experts of high- threat respiratory
pathogens to review the latest scientific evidence on MERS-CoV and
enhance collaboration across all sectors worldwide. UNEP has joined the
partnership to form the Quadripartite as of April 2022.
As
part of ongoing efforts to address MERS-CoV, several meetings have been
held which include the 2015 International Scientific Meeting in Cairo,
Egypt, and the first Tripartite Global Technical Meeting in Geneva,
Switzerland in 2017, the second virtual Tripartite Global Technical
Meeting on MERS-CoV and Other Emerging Zoonotic Coronaviruses in 2021,
followed by this Quadripartite meeting in 2023.
Following up from the 2021 meeting, this meeting aimed to further build upon the learnings from the COVID-19 pandemic and the rapid advances made throughout the pandemic in the understanding, diagnosis, prevention and treatment of diseases caused by coronaviruses; and how such advances could be applied to initiatives on MERS-CoV.
The specific objectives of the meeting were:
report on the implementation of past meeting recommendations, latest scientific findings and ongoing research, country experiences and lessons larned on MERS-CoV since the last Global Technical Meeting in 2021
- Facilitate coordination and communication between relevant sectors to ensure the implementation of the One Health approach for MERS-CoV and emerging zoonotic coronaviruses: 1) preparedness, prevention, readiness and control; 2) surveillance activities, diagnostic approaches and interpretation of results; and 3) intervention measures, including potential vaccination of dromedaries and humans, community engagement, and risk communication
- Review and apply lessons learned from COVID-19 for the prevention and control of MERS-CoV and other emerging zoonotic coronaviruses, building on the discussions of past global technical meetings
- Update strategies, tools and steps to restore, develop and maintain MERS-CoV prevention and control efforts in affected and at-risk countries, including at the animal-human-environment interface and through multi-pathogen surveillance
- Identify priority actions and future research needs for the continued advancement in the prevention and control of MERS-CoV and other zoonotic coronaviruses
Participants
Stakeholders invited to attend the meeting included representatives from ministries of health, ministries of agriculture and ministries of environment in affected and at-risk countries, MERS-CoV and zoonotic CoV subject matter experts and researchers, funding agencies, industrial partners and representatives from FAO, UNEP, WOAH and WHO at headquarters, regional and country levels.
Proceedings
The meeting was by invitation only and conducted with a mix of presentations, panel discussions, Q&A sessions, a poster session and discussion, breakout group work and an interactive networking session. In the final sessions of the meeting, participants broke out into groups and agreed on a set of MERS research priorities and then stated how they or their institutions could help address them and what they would need to do so.
Language
The meeting was held in English with French and Arabic simultaneous interpretation.
Meeting Venue
Voco Hotel, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia