From Crisis Response to Resilience: Innovating for Health Security Beyond Borders

The impact of responding to epidemics and pandemics too late and too little extend far beyond public health, from disrupted supply chains and trade flows to fiscal shocks that erode hard-won development gains. The current response to the Ebola disease outbreak caused by Bundibugyo virus (BDBV) is a timely reminder of how quickly infectious disease threats can destabilise health systems, economies and regional security. Building resilience to these threats depends on three interconnected priorities: innovation in knowledge and technologies, innovation in partnerships, financing and networks, and bringing innovations to the populations who need it most.

The next phase of CEPI’s strategy, CEPI 3.0 (2027-2031), provides a practical framework building resilience by connecting these three areas: strengthening viral family knowledge as well as sustainable vaccine platforms (knowledge and technology), establishing ready-to-activate global and regional networks and equitable partnership models (partnerships and networks), and embedding equitable access and biosecurity so that innovation reaches populations who need it most (population impact). The BDBV response offers a live test case for how CEPI 3.0 converts investment into capability that protects lives, economies and security across borders.

Echoing the World Health Summit 2026 theme, “From Crisis to Resilience: Innovating for Health”, this session will position CEPI 3.0 as a practical framework connecting technological innovation, cross-sector and cross-border partnership, and population-level resilience – and explore how investment in CEPI 3.0 helps countries mitigate the health, socio-economic, and security impact of outbreaks.