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.

Influenza epidemiology and burden of disease in Mongolia, 2013-2014 to 2017-2018.

Background: Mongolia is a vast, sparsely populated country in central Asia. Its harsh climate and nomadic lifestyle make the population vulnerable to acute respiratory infections, particularly influenza. Evidence on the morbidity, mortality and socioeconomic impact of influenza in Mongolia is scarce; however, routine surveillance for influenza-like illness (ILI), severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) and laboratory-detected influenza is conducted.