The Pandemic Fund

Background

Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Timor Leste received US$15.5 million from the Pandemic Fund to strengthen pandemic preparedness and response in the region. The grant has leveraged additional US$367 million in co-investment, as well as US$504.9 million in co-financing. 

This project will be implemented by four Implementing Entities (IEs): the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), UNICEF, the World Bank, and the World Health Organization South-East Asia (WHO SEARO).

The eight Southeast Asian countries have already strengthened public health capacity in line with International Health Regulations (IHR). Nonetheless, they continue to face multiple threats. People living in the region were severely impacted by the Delta variant of COVID-19 in 2021, and dengue and other arboviruses are on the rise. The frequency and severity of these threats are heightened by rapid urbanization, high population density, limited access to clean water and health care, and climate change, including extreme weather events. This range of factors underscores the need to boost public health capacity across the primary, district, subnational, national, and regional levels. 

In the spirit of multisectoral collaboration that defines the Pandemic Fund, the countries’ Ministries of Health will lead the initiative, alongside the Ministries of Agriculture and Ministries of Finance, as well as a network of global and national civil society and community-based organizations. 
 

Project objectives

With the Pandemic Fund grant, the project aims to strengthen pandemic preparedness and response across the Southeast Asia region and accelerate the implementation of regional strategic frameworks. 
 

Implementation arrangements and key components

The project’s five main areas of work encompass the Pandemic Fund’s priorities -- surveillance, laboratory systems, and workforce development – as well as the underlying theme of community engagement. Details on each area follow. 

1. Strengthening collaborative surveillance. This work includes fortifying public health intelligence at the national and regional levels to detect health threats swiftly and inform decision-making. This work also includes enhancing multi-source collaborative surveillance and advancing a One Health collaboration, particularly for risk assessments.
2. Enhancing environmental and wastewater surveillance. Activities in this area include strengthening genomic and wastewater surveillance, instituting early warning systems that incorporate climate, vector, and epidemiological data for Aedes mosquito-borne arbovirus events, and establishing real-time water quality monitoring, analysis, and reporting systems.
3. Upgrading regional diagnostics and laboratory quality management. This work includes establishing a multidisciplinary, regional reference diagnostic network and implementing a regional framework to enhance quality management for testing, data generation, and data sharing.  
4. Increasing workforce capacity. Activities in this area include strengthening field epidemiology capacity across the human and animal health sectors and improving the quality of the region’s Field Epidemiology Training Program. They also include initiating the Global Laboratory Leadership Program in Southeast Asia, skilling the community water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) workforce, developing capacity for animal health preparedness and response, and creating a multi-country emergency management fellowship.
5. Engaging the primary health care system and strengthening risk communication and community engagement (RCCE). As part of this work, India is developing a model for an Epidemic Ready Primary Health Care System (ERPHC) and sharing lessons learned with other project countries. All participating countries will train community health workers and volunteers on prevention, preparedness, and response, establish a Regional Community of Practice for RCCE and community resilience building, enable the collection and use of social and behavioral data, and foster early detection and response within communities. 
    

Expected outcomes

By successfully implementing the above activities, the Southeast Asian countries expect to:

1. Strengthen collaborative surveillance across countries, enabling the timely detection of health threats and supporting informed decision-making during emergencies.
2. Enhance environmental and wastewater surveillance to detect diseases with epidemic and pandemic potential.
3. Improve laboratory and diagnostic systems to characterize and confirm pathogens.
4. Strengthen workforce development aligned with a One Health approach, in order to build capacity across the human and animal health sectors.
5. Develop a resilient, community-engaged primary health care system to respond effectively to health emergencies.