Funders play a key role in ensuring biosafety and biosecurity in life science research. This guidance helps funders identify, assess, and mitigate risks, from accidental infection to deliberate misuse, when reviewing high-risk proposals. It outlines a rapid screen, detailed assessment, and mitigation steps to support safe, responsible research.

The COVID-19 pandemic harmed the U.S. in profound ways. More than a million people died, resulting in historic declines in life expectancy. Many who survived their infection continue to suffer from long-term, in some cases disabling, symptoms. But one lingering impact of the pandemic—extreme political polarization—is poised to erode the health of people in the United States far beyond even these staggering tolls.

The Children’s Hospitals in Africa Mapping Project (CHAMP) survey was developed and implemented to assess the capabilities of some of the best resourced sub-Saharan African hospitals serving children. Twenty hospitals from 15 countries completed the survey from 2018 to 2019.

AI provides opportunities to accelerate epidemic preparedness and response and ensure health security. The benefits may be applicable to countries in Africa, which have struggled to meet compliance obligations under international health security frameworks. We consider the risks and barriers that may challenge the deployment of AI for health security in African settings, and opportunities to elevate African leadership.

Local production is a global priority for increasing access to routine, outbreak, and pandemic vaccines and leads to a variety of direct and indirect benefits for countries. This study aimed to characterize the enabling environment for the sustainable production of influenza vaccines, including for epidemic and pandemic preparedness.

To advance an international strategy the G20 South African Presidency convened the High-Level Independent Panel on Financing the Global Commons for Pandemic Preparedness and Response with the US National Academy of Medicine as Secretariat. HLIP's 2025 report recommends solutions to expand access to medical countermeasures during public health emergencies and strengthen the financing and mobilization of domestic resources.

Recently the US secretary of health and human services Robert F Kennedy Jr decided to terminate mRNA vaccine research projects worth $500m. Multilateral initiatives are needed to signal confidence and fill funding gaps in mRNA research, writes Jennifer Nuzzo

Businesses are essential partners in protecting public health and economic stability during crises, as demonstrated by a national initiative that united US business leaders to share lessons from COVID-19 and develop practical models for future emergency response.

This report identifies persistent barriers in diagnostic preparedness that continue to undermine efforts to prevent future pandemics and provides the first in-depth assessment focused specifically on diagnostic readiness in the context of the 100 Days Mission (100DM). The report is the result of a collaboration between the Pandemic Center, the International Pandemic Preparedness Secretariat, and FIND.

Rapid detection and response to biological threats are critical to global health security. For decades, the United States has played a leading role in international outbreak response. However, recent US policy shifts, deep cuts to global health programs, reductions in personnel, and withdrawal from key institutions like the W.H.O. , are weakening disease detection and response systems worldwide.

Influenza epidemics are influenced by climate, including absolute humidity and temperature. Patterns of climate variability are expected to increase with climate change, leading to more frequent and severe weather extremes. Increasing variability stands to impact seasonal flu outbreaks, which can be explored using mechanistic epidemiologic models.

Emerging and/or re-emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) in the East Africa region are associated with climate change-induced environmental drivers. This review recommends the adoption of specialised risk mapping approaches such as ENM for environmental monitoring of EIDs under IRA processes. Findings from the review were used for the conceptualisation of an IRA framework for addressing environmentally driven EIDs.

The Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health, in partnership with the Biosecurity and Pandemic Policy Center at the Texas A&M Bush School of Government & Public Service, released an outline of priority policy actions to advance clean indoor air that will improve public health and reduce disease transmission.

In the face of a looming global health threats, action is urgently needed. Governments and multilateral global health organizations must improve access to existing countermeasures, leverage conditions on public funding and trial agreements to enhance access to new tools, and support local manufacturing in LMICs. The question is whether we will take the necessary steps to ensure that everyone has access to them.

This study reviews what we think we know about the US experience during COVID and where the data point toward identifying the source of America's profound and deadly failures, to improve preparedness and response to the next pandemic.

The Testing Playbook for Biological Emergencies provides US decision-makers at the federal, state and local level with a clear and evidence-based guide for making rapid and effective decisions regarding the development, implementation and scale-up of diagnostic testing at every stage in an infectious disease emergency.

African countries, as in many others in both the developing and developed world, have protocols for managing naturally occurring outbreaks, but fewer policy measures govern those arising from accidental or deliberate actions. This policy brief intends to motivate countries to develop policies to assess the cause of outbreaks with epidemic and pandemic potential and outlines specific necessary management actions.

The vast majority of countries that entered the COVID-19 pandemic with strong capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to disease threats achieved lower pandemic mortality rates than less prepared nations, per a major study published in BMJ Global Health. The analysis was led by researchers from the Brown University School of Public Health, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI).

There is a brief window of opportunity for the South African government to accelerate the establishment of an integrated, competitive, and cohesive local vaccine manufacturing ecosystem for the African continent. The financial resources and the political will are, for a short period of time, available to support such a far-reaching and impactful intervention.

The Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Global Health Policy Center, and the COVID Collaborative convened a bipartisan cross-section of the nation’s top pandemic leaders to identify solutions to better protect Americans from pandemic threats and re-enforce American values of freedom and democracy.