The World Health Organization (WHO) announced US$ 4 million in funding from donors to create a catalytic grant fund for organizations working in pathogen genomic surveillance.
The fund will support projects across the world, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, to pilot projects and in doing so, create an evidence base for how to quickly scale-up pathogen genomic surveillance.
The initial grants for the catalytic fund have been provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, and the Wellcome Trust to support the International Pathogen Surveillance Network (IPSN). IPSN is a new global network of pathogen surveillance actors convened by WHO through a Secretariat at the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence in Berlin. The fund is hosted by the UN Foundation on behalf of the IPSN.
The amount of US$ 4 million will be available for IPSN members to apply for grant funding in February 2024.
