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Project Kick-off Meeting of ASEAN-Canada's Global Partnership Program on Enhancing the ASEAN Health Cooperation on Emerging Infectious Diseases and Other Relevant Potential Threats

Monday 16 June - Wednesday 18 June, 2014 Singapore

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Canada’s Global Partnership Program (GPP) hosted a meeting in Singapore on 16 June, 2014 promoting ASEAN health cooperation on emerging infectious diseases. ASEAN and GPP are working together towards the strengthening of five areas in the Southeast Asian region:

1. Lab capacity

2. Surveillance: strengthening preparedness and response to outbreaks in the ASEAN region

3. Surveillance networks

4. Security

5. Multi-sectoral collaboration: focusing on how to fit existing networks in the region with each other for increased collaboration

Organizational Showcase        

The meeting showcased a number of organizations conducting public health activities in the Southeast Asian region including: 

• Canada’s International Development Research Center (IDRC)
• United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
• Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT)
• The World Health Organization (WHO)
• Connecting Organizations for Regional Disease Surveillance (CORDS)
• ASEAN+3 Partnership Laboratories (APL)
• ASEAN+3 Field Epidemiology Training Network (FETN)
• BioDiaspora
• Mekong Basin Disease Surveillance Foundation (MBDS)
• Asia Partnership for Emerging Infectious Diseases Research (APEIR).

Project Discussions

The meeting touched on interrelated issues in global health like biosecurity, lab capacities for outbreak preparation and response, and disease surveillance capacities. Small breakout groups during the meeting were organized to discuss solidification of each organization’s action plans, incorporating biosecurity concepts into their frameworks.  

APEIR, along with FETN and MBDS, introduced their joint project (“Mitigating Biosecurity Risks from Infectious Diseases of Pandemic Potential in Southeast Asia”) at this meeting, discussing with other groups about possible collaboration.

The meeting provided a great venue for promoting collaboration between all participant organizations.