SPOTLIGHT ON PARTNERSHIPS
and regional stage. This is especially critical given the need for partner countries to take on the increased responsibility required to sustain the HIV/AIDS response going forward. The GHSD bureau will expand upon this effort by other foreign ministries to elevate tackling global health threats as foreign policy and national security priorities, and establish key lines of work that require greater global collaboration such as sharing data, facilitating access to medical countermeasures and countering misinformation. The bureau will take a leadership role in using data and evidence to help shape diplomatic priorities, and showcase the return on investing in preparedness and health security across government, multilateral institutions and other partners.
JOHN NKENGASONG John Nkengasong is US global AIDS coordinator and leads the Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy at the US State Department. In this role, he oversees the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Born in Cameroon, he was the first director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, and a World Health Organization special envoy on Covid-19 preparedness and response. He previously served at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in various capacities and co-chaired PEPFAR’s Laboratory Technical Working Group. In 2022 he became the first laureate of the Virchow Prize for Global Health. X-TWITTER @USAmbGHSD
LEVERAGING THE PEPFAR PLATFORM Over the past 20 years, PEPFAR has
deaths worldwide from Covid-19 new HIV infections in 2022 + 20 m 1.3 m been one of the largest investors in the overall public health systems in our partner countries – supporting 3,000 labs, 70,000 facility and community-based clinics, and training over 340,000 healthcare workers. This platform is a vital component of the HIV/AIDS response, and has been effectively leveraged to tackle other disease threats, especially when they pose a risk to the continuity of HIV services. This was demonstrated at a very large scale during Covid-19, when PEPFAR platforms were vital to creating access to diagnostics, supporting vaccination campaigns and conducting surveillance of the threat by building upon PEPFAR-supported data systems. In Tanzania, when the vaccination campaign stagnated in early 2022, PEPFAR supported platforms helped vaccinate 25 million individuals in less than five months. More recently, PEPFAR-platforms have helped to respond to the Ebola outbreak in the DRC, Marburg in Tanzania, and Mpox in several countries in Africa and Latin America. Our partner countries will continue to find ways to build upon the PEPFAR-supported platforms to prevent, detect and respond to future outbreaks. DEVELOPING TRANSFORMATIVE PARTNERSHIPS Partnerships have always been central to success in global health – no one entity can drive outcomes through their own funding and efforts. But given
the multisectoral challenges that disease threats provide, there is an increasing opportunity to bring in new partners who have aligned interests. This includes global and regional development banks that have the ability to invest in infrastructure relevant to health, and also the private sector, which has distinct expertise that can be engaged across the entire health value chain – from research and development to surveillance to service delivery. A critical example of these partners coming together is in decentralised manufacturing for diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines. Manufacturing companies in the United States can provide technology and capacity, development financing institutions can provide financing, and global health donors such as PEPFAR, the Global Fund and Gavi alongside countries can provide demand. This can help to catalyse the development of a pharmaceutical manufacturing base in regions of the world where current access to medical countermeasures is limited. This will not only help to create a shorter and more resilient supply chain, but will also serve to build the flexible capacity needed to respond to future health threats. Similar transformative partnership opportunities are possible in a whole range of critical health areas going forward. Good politics alongside good public health practice saves lives. Embedding global health as a core component of diplomacy and foreign policy will better prepare the world for tackling the disease threats in the present and future. ▪
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Health: A Political Choice – From Fragmentation to Integration
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