BACKGROUND :

We now live in a world where any local infectious disease outbreak event has the potential to become an epidemic or pandemic. While preparedness of local agencies is key to quickly identify and contain outbreaks, global partnerships and international collaboration across all sectors must be effective to support and manage events. These partnerships have the potential to proactively alter the global architecture in order to quickly detect, prevent and respond to infectious disease threats as they emerge.

The plenary session will address the Leadership Needed for Managing Emerging Infectious Diseases of the 21st Century. It will set the scene of the global health architecture and how the international community is organizing to address effectively EIDs. It will also address leadership needed at country level for managing emerging infectious diseases. 

The session will feature speakers from organizations with recent experience of preparing for, and responding to global health crises in the 21^st century and consider how, as risks, environment and global architecture change, funding varies, how organizations change and adapt to tackle the contemporary challenges, and how are the lessons learned from recent challenges being incorporated into plans for future events. Speakers from countries and civil societies will bring a national and community level perspective on how to respond to global health crises.