WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan Among 20 Experts On New UK-Led Pandemic Team

Dr Soumya Swaminathan is a Chief Scientist at the World Health Organisation. (File)

London:

Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist at the World Health Organisation (WHO), is among a worldwide team of 20 experts who make up a new UK-led Pandemic Preparedness Partnership (PPP), which is meeting on Tuesday as part of global efforts to save lives from future diseases.

The PPP is chaired by UK Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, and has the remit to report to world leaders at June’s UK-hosted G7 Summit in Cornwall. The public-private partnership brings together industry, international organisations and leading experts to provide recommendations for delivering ambitious targets to more quickly develop vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics through greater global cooperation on research and development, manufacturing, clinical trials and data-sharing.

The Covid pandemic has shaken the world but united us in our determination to ensure no disease has such an impact in the future, said UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock, ahead of a two-day virtual conference of the new partnership which began on Tuesday.

As G7 President, the UK is determined to work with our partners to build back better from coronavirus and strengthen global preparedness for future pandemics. This new expert group will drive our efforts in the years ahead to protect people everywhere from new diseases and to save lives, he said.

The PPP will advise the UK G7 Presidency on how to meet a target of cutting down the time to develop and deploy high quality vaccines for new diseases from 300 to 100 days, backed by additional funding of 16 million pounds to support the work of Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) on global vaccine supply.

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