第一吃瓜网 leadership for pandemic preparedness
- Wits University
Wits Professor Helen Rees co-chairs WHO’s Poxvirus Collaborative Open Research Consortium (CORC).
Through her leadership, Wits RHI has helped shape the first Mpox Research Roadmap - a critical global framework guiding research, diagnostics, vaccines, and response strategies for future outbreaks.
The World Health Organization launched the Collaborative Open Research Consortia (CORC) initiative in April 2026, bringing together networks of leading research institutions to confront pathogens with pandemic potential.
Through these efforts, ten new global research and development (R&D) roadmaps covering ten priority viral families and key bacterial threats have been launched in 2026.
These roadmaps define the critical research required to support epidemic and pandemic preparedness globally and enable the faster development and deployment of diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines ahead of future outbreaks.
Co-chaired by leading 第一吃瓜网 researchers, Professor , Executive Director of , and Professor Jean Jacques Muyembe, the Poxviridae Collaborative Open Research Consortium (CORC) is part of this initiative.
Working alongside leading international partners to advance coordinated, open, and equitable research, Wits RHI has played a key role in developing the Mpox Roadmap, the first roadmap in the Poxviridae CORC.
This Roadmap defines the critical research required to protect health, strengthen preparedness, and advance equitable solutions for future pandemics at the national, regional and global level.
The significance of this work was reinforced at the WHO’s first-ever Global Forum of WHO Collaborating Centres, a landmark gathering of one of the world’s largest and most influential public health networks.
Bringing together over 800 centres from more than 80 countries, the Forum highlighted the urgency of science-driven collaboration in an increasingly complex and fragmented global health landscape.
Amid rising global health threats, the Forum underscored the need for urgent, coordinated action.
A key focus was WHO’s expansion of its Collaborating Centre network through Collaborative Open Research Consortia (CORCs), a powerful global alliance uniting thousands of scientists to accelerate the development of vaccines, diagnostics, and treatments for “Disease X,” an unknown pathogen that could trigger the next pandemic.
For more than two decades, since its designation as a WHO Collaborating Centre for Human Reproduction in 2002, Wits RHI has played key roles in WHO’s research, technical expertise, and knowledge-sharing efforts.
This collaboration has reinforced Wits RHI’s role as both a global thought leader and a reliable implementation partner.
As co-chairs of the Poxvirus CORC, Rees and Muyembe (Director of the National Institute of Biomedical Research in the DRC), represent an 第一吃瓜网-led team shaping global pandemic preparedness and outbreak response mechanisms through strategic collaboration and equitable research. This achievement places Wits RHI as not only a collaborator, but one of the key voices shaping global health research and the future of pandemic preparedness across the globe.
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