International SOS, Chatham House sign partnership agreement to further advance Global Health Security Agenda

Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, and International SOS, the world's leading medical and travel security risks company, have signed a partnership agreement. This is to further advance Global Health Security Agenda as part of the IDRAM initiative the companies have been collaborating on previously.

Francesca Viliani, Head of Public Health Consulting Services and Community Health Programmes at International SOS, said, "Our partnership with Chatham House will enable us to spearhead meaningful collaboration across disciplines and bring together thought leaders in both the private and public sector to drive impactful health initiatives. Our first activity aims to develop a community-based surveillance system, specific for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This is targeted to speed up the response time and reduce the human and economic costs of disease outbreaks. This is critical to the region and the current ongoing cholera outbreak in the country highlights the importance of multi-sectoral partnerships for outbreak management."

Osman Dar, Project Director of the One Health work stream at the Chatham House Centre on Global Health Security, said, "Our partners are integral to achieving the aims and objectives of the Centre. International SOS will bring a host of medical insight to support our joint projects and we are pleased to start the partnership with such an important initiative that will really make a difference to the people in DRC."

The partnership's first activity, funded and hosted by Ending Pandemics (formerly the Skoll Global Threats Fund), will be a workshop in Dar es Salaam: Participatory One Health Disease Detection in the Democratic Republic of Congo: A Technical Workshop on 27-28 February 2018. The workshop will bring together local health authorities, state health agencies, universities, and international organisations from around the world. It will help to identify how community-based disease detection and mitigation initiatives, trialled by Ending Pandemics in Thailand and Tanzania, might be successfully applied in the DRC.