On June 22, the Institut Pasteur hosted Eléonore Caroit, Minister Delegate to the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, responsible for Francophonie, International Partnerships, and French Nationals Abroad.

Alongside Yasmine Belkaid, President of the Institut Pasteur, and Odette Tomescu-Hatto, Executive Vice-President International Affairs, the directors of the Institut Pasteur du Cambodge, the Institut Pasteur du Laos and the Institut Pasteur de Nouvelle-Calédonie presented their respective institutes, offering a snapshot of the diversity of the Pasteur Network.

The Operations Unit in the Department of International Affairs then presented two flagship projects as specific examples of its work:

• ECOMORE/FEF Indopacifique: supported by the French Development Agency (AFD) and the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, and drawing on a decade of activity and collaboration working closely with public health authorities, the ECOMORE network was set up to strengthen preparedness and response to emerging infectious diseases. It uses a One Health approach to examine circulation in humans of high-priority animal- and/or vector-borne diseases in the Indo-Pacific region. FEF Indopacifique works in conjunction with the ECOMORE network to strengthen environmental surveillance of infectious diseases affected by climate change, supporting programs designed to eliminate schistosomiasis in Laos and Madagascar and boost early detection capabilities for avian influenza in Vanuatu.

• AFROSCREEN, supported initially by the AFD and then by the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, is an ambitious program to strengthen genomic surveillance of emerging and re-emerging pathogens with epidemic potential. The program has resulted in a network of laboratories in 13 countries in West and Central Africa and Madagascar. AFROSCREEN has also led to the establishment of a community of practice – an active network of scientists that played a key role in managing the recent mpox outbreak in Madagascar –, as well as a community of One Health stakeholders and national platforms.

These two long-term projects reflect the key principle that it is only through open and collaborative science that collective resilience can be developed to respond to future epidemics.

The visit concluded with a tour of the tsetse fly insectary within the Trypanosome Cell Biology Unit, headed by Brice Rotureau.

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