Projects
Connecting Health Organizations for Regional Disease Surveillance (CHORDS)
Background
Connecting Health Organizations for Regional Disease Surveillance (CHORDS) was established in 2009 by the Nuclear Threat Initiative's (NTI) Global Health and Security Initiative (GHSI) with the support of NTI, the Rockefeller Foundation, and Fondation Mérieux. CHORDS is a non-governmental platform where regional infectious disease surveillance networks around the world interact not only with each other, but with other global partners to strengthen international health security. Learning to mange infectious diseases that involve a great deal of uncertainty and often require cooperation across borders in conflict is an ongoing challenge for these networks.
CHORDS gives developing countries a novel tool for meeting the daunting challenges of the World Health Organization (WHO) International Health Regulations (2005) obligations by facilitating the sharing of information and standards and serving as a forum for communication between WHO and Member States.
NTI's CHORDS and precursor Bellagio "Call for Action" have already contributed to advances in global disease surveillance by accelerating the launch of a regional network (the Southern African Centre for Infectious Disease Surveillance) and opening up dialogue around the planning of a new regional network (in South Asia).
The CHORDS 2010 meeting (in Annecy, France) brought together 43 influential health specialists from around the world to improve global capacity for disease surveillance, a key tenet of improving the response to infectious disease outbreaks, whether naturally occurring or intentional. A main purpose of the Annecy meeting was to articulate how the CHORDS vision can be furthered by leveraging regional networks to create a global social network of infectious disease experts.
Dr. Keiji Fukuda, Special Advisor on Pandemic Influenza to the Director-General of WHO, spoke at the opening plenary session and said, "Networks build trust. Trust alone does not make the world move, but without it the world can't move. Networks are driven by the realities we face. Having networks in place to move accurate and useful information among disease experts at the same speed the event is happening is revolutionary, but essential for facing today's and tomorrow's global health challenges."
"CHORDS creates a global social fabric and continuity of disease experts," said Dr. Suwit Wibulpolprasert, Senior Advisor on Disease Control, Office of Permanent Secretary Ministry of Public Health, Thailand, during his address to meeting participants.
Like a living entity, CHORDS is learning as it moves ahead. It is a process – one with potential to grow into a powerful mechanism for collectively building national and regional infectious disease surveillance capacity and strengthening global health security.
Over the coming year, CHORDS will function as a vibrant forum and engage the members of this expert community in activities, including case clinics, that promote confidence and cooperation. NTI, acting as Secretariat, will develop a multi-year roadmap to transition the management of CHORDS to an International Secretariat, engage stakeholders, and plan the CHORDS 2011 meeting.
Supporters
The Rockefeller Foundation has provided GHSI a grant for CHORDS to establish the steering committee, hire staff, and convene the 2010 CHORDS conference. In addition, Fondation Mérieux has offered its facilities for the 2010 CHORDS conference as an in-kind donation.
Regional Networks and Partner Organizations
— Regional Networks
— Partner Organizations
— Global Health and Security Initiative