Global health leaders have called on countries to strengthen their national public health agencies to ensure better preparedness and resilience against future pandemics.

They made the call on Sunday, in Berlin at the 2025 World Summit during a high-level session titled “Strengthening National Health Agencies for Future Pandemics,”

The sideline event was organised by the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO) Health Emergencies Programme.

Helen Clark, Former New Zealand Prime Minister, called on countries to strengthen their national public health agencies to ensure better preparedness and resilience against future pandemics.

Clark, who is also the incoming Chairperson of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, said that inspite of the world’s painful experience with COVID-19, many nations were still not adequately prepared for future outbreaks, warning that lessons from the pandemic must not be forgotten.

“Most countries going into COVID-19 were not prepared for a pandemic. We must process those lessons and ensure they inform everything we do for better preparedness,” she said.

According to her, strong, capable, and trusted national public health agencies are the institutional backbone of pandemic preparedness, response, and long-term health system resilience.

She emphasised that effective national health agencies require clear legal mandates, stable financing, coordination mechanisms across government sectors, and autonomy to act based on data and evidence.

He cited examples of countries that have strengthened their public health institutions following the pandemic.

She highlighted the transformation of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency from a bureau under the Ministry of Health and Welfare to an independent body reporting directly to the highest level of government.

The reform, she said, granted the agency autonomy over resources, staffing, and coordination, as well as authority to propose and revise laws, issue regulations, and represent the agency in high-level decision-making forums.

“Strong national institutions are the bedrock of national and global pandemic preparedness.

“Their effectiveness will determine the success of global reforms such as the newly adopted pandemic agreement and the amended International Health Regulations,” she added.

She stressed that pandemic preparedness should not be seen as a technical checklist but as a question of governance, how decisions are made, information flows, and accountability is maintained between crises.

She also called for equitable access to essential health countermeasures, noting that “preparedness begins at home” and that no country should depend solely on global markets to protect its citizens.

“Every region needs the capacity to detect, produce, and deploy countermeasures, from diagnostics and data systems to vaccines and protective equipment,” she said.

She reaffirmed the commitment of the WHO, the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, and the International Association of National Public Health Institutes to work together in building evidence, supporting institutional reforms, and promoting sustainable financing for public health systems.

She urged political leaders to remain engaged and empower their national public health agencies to respond decisively to emerging threats.

“The success of the pandemic agreement depends on national leadership of presidents and prime ministers asking, ‘Is my country ready for the next threat?’ and empowering their public health agencies to answer, ‘Yes, we are,” she said.

Prof. Chikwe Ihekweazu, the Executive Director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme and founding Director of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), also addressed the summit.

He drew on his extensive experience in national public health agencies and emergency response.

Reflecting on the COVID-19 pandemic, Ihekweazu described the immense responsibility of public health leaders in advising ministers, presidents, and other high-level officials, coordinating across sectors, and communicating with the public.

“For the first time in our lifetimes, we saw how exposed we were to the challenges we faced. It was a traumatic experience for many, and the responsibilities we carried were immense,” he said.

He emphasised that while technical expertise in fields such as epidemiology and microbiology is essential, public health leaders must also navigate governance systems, balance technical advice with societal and economic considerations, and engage effectively with government decision-makers.

Ihekweazu highlighted recent efforts worldwide to establish or reform national public health agencies, citing Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Singapore, and Japan as examples.

He stressed the importance of collective learning rather than relying solely on individual national experiences.

“We want to collect evidence of what works and what doesn’t. That is why collaboration with the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research is so important—for the agencies, for WHO, and for countries worldwide,” he said.

He further noted that governance systems vary across nations, influencing agency performance, and that flexible, evidence-informed strategies are critical to building resilient public health institutions.

“It’s about our collective wisdom and learning. We want national leaders to have the tools and courage to make the difficult decisions necessary for public health,” he added.

The summit session highlighted that national public health agencies must be empowered, well-resourced, and trusted to act swiftly and equitably, ensuring that countries can respond effectively to future health emergencies both in crisis and peacetime.

The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) is partnering with the Nigeria Natural Medicine Development Agency (NNMDA) to develop herbal medicines to ensure safety, efficacy, and global acceptance.
This is contained in a statement by NAFDAC resident media consultant, Mr Olusayo Akintola.

NAFDAC Director-General, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye said Nigerian herbal medicine practitioners have the capacity to formulate safe and effective indigenous natural remedies that meet international standards
She said that NAFDAC has two types of approval for herbal medicines, adding that the first type is a ‘listing’ (L) approval, which is granted after the product has been evaluated in the agency laboratory for toxicology safety tests and with satisfactory results.

Adeyeye said that products in this approval category are listed for a period of two years, with an NAFDAC number bearing the letter “L” at the end.

She said that the second approval type requires that clinical trials be conducted on the product to prove the efficacy of such a product, saying that if this is done in a well-designed protocol with proven efficacy, a full approval with five-year validity is given.

The NAFDAC boss identified cost as a major obstacle preventing herbal medicine practitioners from subjecting their products to clinical trials.

She said that NAFDAC has listed thousands of herbal medicines, with only a few products that have gone through clinical trial outcomes, but such cannot be given 5-year approval without passing the efficacy test through a clinical trial.

“We know that herbal medicine works. It is how to ascertain through clinical trial the level it can be used that patients will be safe, and above which there could be no damage to the liver, the kidney, and other internal organs.

“The fact that it is natural, doesn’t mean that it is all safe. ‘That is where NAFDAC regulation and control comes in,” she stressed.

She recalled that the agency launched the herbal medicine products committee just before the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought the practitioners, Ministry of Health, NAFDAC, and researchers together.

Adeyeye said that this partnership effort is very important because the practitioners know what their forefathers have been using, while the researchers know the science.

According to her, NAFDAC is looking for funding to assist herbal medicine practitioners in the conduct of clinical trials, which is highly capital-intensive.

She equally noted that the agency is working assiduously with the NNMDA to ensure that clinical trial is conducted for the medicines that have met the regulatory requirements for listing.

Adeyeye said that NAFDAC has been educating the herbal medicine practitioners who intend to register products through stakeholders’ meetings.

She said that the agency has gone ahead to published a simple floor plan on the website as a guide for the practitioners, while averting that it does not necessarily to have a big place to use for production.

The NAFDAC boss maintained that the factory must be well-ordered to allow a good workflow so that there will not be contamination.

‘We are working with our practitioners. We are approving herbal medicines daily in NAFDAC, but we are working towards a phase where we will have a national formulary for those that have had clinical trials and have been proven to be very effective,’ she said.

Adeyeye stated that before her appointment at NAFDAC, she was a professor in the United States, adding that at the university, she led a project that developed an anti-sickling polyherbal medicine.

“This medicine, which NAFDAC listed many years before my tenure, was tested in a laboratory setting by incubating it with blood samples from children with sickle cell disease to prove its anti-sickling effect.

“Two research papers were published, confirming both the anti-sickling and anti-infective properties of the medicine.

‘We conducted a clinical trial approved by the Ethics Committee of Bowen University and the Institutional Review Board of my University in the U.S on the polyherbal in July before my assumption of office in NAFDAC in November 2017’.

She added that the trial showed that the product was efficacious but needed more data and funding for completion.

NAFDAC, she said, is determined to assist herbal medicine practitioners, especially in the areas of clinical trials, adding that it will jointly mobilise resources with NNMDA to get some fully registered.