On Aug. 1, 2024, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the World Health Organization (WHO) called on researchers and governments to strengthen and accelerate global research to prepare for the next pandemic.

They emphasized the importance of expanding research to encompass entire families of pathogens that can infect humans–regardless of their perceived pandemic risk–as well as focusing on individual pathogens. The approach proposed using prototype pathogens as guides or pathfinders to develop the knowledge base for entire pathogen families.