Through a Rockefeller Foundation and Pasteur Network partnership, the 3-day convening Climate Sensitive Disease: Adapting Early Warning to a Changing Environment in the Pasteur Network was held in Paris from 13 to 15 June 2023. The convening engaged a diverse group of stakeholders, including representatives from most of Pasteur Network’s institutes, in discussing and developing future projects that will support the integration of climate-sensitive approaches into local, regional and global initiatives within the Pasteur Network. The main aim of the convening was to inform the development of a phased approach across the Pasteur Network to utilise novel disease prediction and forecasting methods in conjunction with modern disease surveillance tools to address the relationship between climate change and the emergence and re-emergence of diseases, with a specific emphasis on using this approach for public health decision-making. 

On the first day of the convening, experts specialising in disease prediction and forecasting tools linking climate change and health data presented their various projects providing concrete examples to inform the working group sessions over the following days. This included a presentation by Rachel Lowe about the HARMONIZE project. Rachel also participated in a panel discussion led by Dr. Amadou Sall, CEO of Institut Pasteur de Dakar.

During the convening, four working groups were formed with participation from HARMONIZE Principal Investigators Chirstovam Barcellos and Rachel Lowe, which aimed at determining network-wide consensus and priorities for climate change sensitive emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases and the development of a Pasteur Network Early Warning System. The questions and discussion were directed towards creating an overall understanding of the convening’s focus and the direction of the Rockefeller Foundation and Pasteur Network partnership. Initiatives like HARMONIZE were highlighted as useful frameworks to gather the multisource multiscale data required to inform robust early warning systems for climate-sensitive infectious diseases in priority areas for the Pasteur Network. 

Rachel Lowe and Christovam Barcellos at the Pasteur Network & Rockefeller Foundation Meeting on Climate Change and Emerging Diseases in Paris.