Preparing for the next respiratory pathogen pandemic: using tabletop simulation exercises to strengthen national planning in Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Lebanon and Mongolia.

The Preparedness and Resilience for Emerging Threats (PRET) initiative takes an innovative mode-of-transmission approach to pandemic planning by advocating for integrated preparedness and response systems and capacities for groups of pathogens with common transmission pathways. The World Health Organization (WHO) launched this initiative in 2023 with the publication of PRET Module 1 addressing respiratory pathogens. Exercise PanPRET-1 is a customizable tabletop simulation exercise (TTX) package developed to complement PRET Module 1.

Single-cell atlas of ABCA7 loss-of-function reveals impaired neuronal respiration via choline-dependent lipid imbalances.

Loss-of-function (LoF) variants in the lipid transporter ABCA7 significantly increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease (odds ratio ∼2), yet the pathogenic mechanisms and the neural cell types affected by these variants remain largely unknown. Here, we performed single-nuclear RNA sequencing of 36 human samples from the prefrontal cortex of 12 ABCA7 LoF carriers and 24 matched non-carrier control individuals. ABCA7 LoF was associated with gene expression changes in all major cell types.

Investing in health preparedness, response and resilience: a genomics costing tool focused on next generation sequencing.

The world has seen unprecedented gains in the global genomic surveillance capacities for pathogens with pandemic and epidemic potential within the last 4 years. To strengthen and sustain the gains made, WHO is working with countries and partners to implement the Global Genomic Surveillance Strategy for Pathogens with Pandemic and Epidemic Potential 2022-2032. A key technical product developed through these multi-agency collaborative efforts is a genomics costing tool (GCT), as sought by many countries.

Strengthening pathogen genomic surveillance for health emergencies: insights from the World Health Organization's regional initiatives.

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a rapid scale-up in the use of genomic surveillance as a pandemic preparedness and response tool. As a result, the number of countries with in-country SARS-CoV-2 genomic sequencing capability increased by 40% from February 2021 to July 2022. The Global Genomic Surveillance Strategy for Pathogens with Pandemic and Epidemic Potential 2022-2032 was launched by the World Health Organization (WHO) in March 2022 to bring greater coherence to ongoing work to strengthen genomic surveillance.