UNGA side event - Crisis in Preparedness: Laboratories & Frontline Readiness in the Time of Ebola

On September 21, 2026, Center for Global Health kicked off the high-level week of the 81st UN General Assembly (UNGA 81) with a special session on a question the current Ebola outbreak has made urgent: are the world's laboratories ready for the next health emergency?

"Crisis in Preparedness: Laboratories & Frontline Readiness in the Time of Ebola" was co-organized by the Mérieux Foundation USA, Weill Cornell Medical College, the GHESKIO Centers and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). It was held in partnership with the Pandemic Fund, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) and the NYU School of Global Public Health.

Held at Weill Cornell Medicine's Belfer Research Building, the session brought together regional health leaders from Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas with funders and implementing organizations. Their goal was to identify practical ways to sustain investment in clinical laboratory capacity as a cornerstone of global health security.

Why laboratories matter now

The session started from a simple idea: labs that serve a community's everyday needs are also its first line of defense in an outbreak. The current Ebola outbreak in Central Africa shows the cost of weak testing, as delayed detection let transmission take hold before the outbreak was recognized. Preparedness has to be built into the daily work of clinical labs. Keeping that capacity in place is also far cheaper than building it in the middle of a crisis.

After welcome remarks and keynotes from PAHO and WHO leaders, two panels took up these questions. The first looked at regional perspectives on turning routine lab systems into pandemic preparedness. The second focused on building integrated laboratory capacity at the country level.

Speakers:

Welcome and introductory remarks

• Dr. Daniel Fitzgerald, Weill Cornell Medicine
• Dr. Robert A. Harrington, Weill Cornell Medicine
• Dr. Robert Sebbag, Mérieux Foundation

Keynote addresses

• Dr. Jarbas Barbosa da Silva Jr., Pan American Health Organization
• Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, WHO Health Emergencies Programme (by video)

Panel 1: From Routine Laboratory Systems to Pandemic Preparedness

• Stewart Simonson, Global Health Strategies (moderator)
• Dr. Ciro Ugarte, Pan American Health Organization
• Dr. Samia Saad, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations
• Mikaël Garnier-Lavalley, The Pandemic Fund
• Dr. Montserrat Arroyo Kuribreña, World Organisation for Animal Health

Panel 2: Building Integrated Laboratory Capacity at the Country Level

• Dr. Jean-William Pape, Weill Cornell Medicine and GHESKIO Centers (moderator)
• Dr. Laura Goodman, Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine
• Dr. Dorothée Lintner, Mérieux Foundation
• Lucy Maryogo-Robinson, Association of Public Health Laboratories
• Dr. Tajudeen Raji, Africa CDC

Closing remarks

• Dr. Kevin De Cock, former Director, CDC Center for Global Health

Looking ahead

The bottom line from the afternoon was clear: robust laboratory capacity is an essential part of frontline readiness. Outbreaks are not stopped by national reference labs alone. They are stopped when frontline clinics can recognize, test, and report unusual cases quickly, and when institutions across sectors and borders work together to make that possible.

For the Center for Global Health, the session builds on decades of work with GHESKIO in Haiti, where laboratory systems built for HIV and TB care have long served as a platform for responding to new threats.

We thank all of our speakers, our co-organizers at the Mérieux Foundation USA, GHESKIO and PAHO, our partners at the Pandemic Fund, CEPI, APHL and the NYU School of Global Public Health, and everyone who joined us in the room.