SPEECH BY MR ONG YE KUNG, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND COORDINATING MINISTER FOR SOCIAL POLICIES, AT THE 79TH WORLD HEALTH ASSEMBLY SIDE EVENT ON STRENGTHENING GLOBAL PANDEMIC PREPAREDNESS, 18 MAY 2026

Mr Bjorn Kummel, Head of Unit Global Health, German Federal Ministry of Health

Dr Abdirahman Mahamud, Director, Health Emergency Alert and Response Operations, World Health Organization Health Emergencies Programme

Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen

1.            I am pleased to join you today at this event, jointly organised by the Communicable Diseases Agency Singapore, the Robert Koch Institute, and the World Health Organization (WHO).                         

2.            We are here because the next pandemic is edging closer. The COVID-19 crisis has passed, but the risk of another pandemic crisis remains. And when it strikes again, the impact could be as devastating as – or more devastating than – COVID-19. We must be prepared: we cannot lapse into complacency, and we cannot let our attention drift.

3.            Indeed, even as we meet today, the WHO has declared the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda as a public health emergency of international concern, while hantavirus infections in other parts of the world are also drawing close attention from public health authorities. These are timely reminders that infectious disease threats continue to emerge and evolve.

4.            The second United Nations General Assembly High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response will be held this September to revisit this issue that concerns all of humanity. As we gather today, it is timely to take stock of where we are across four areas that I think are important: surveillance, vaccine development, regulatory approval, and vaccine production. I will share what Singapore is doing, as a reference and a case study.

5.            First, surveillance. With modern aviation, pathogens spread fast. Early detection buys time – for governments to shore up their healthcare systems, apply targeted social measures, conduct contact tracing, and implement quarantine where needed.

6.            It is not realistic for every city, town and village to detect novel pathogens, sequence them, and share findings quickly. A more practical goal is for key aviation nodes to do so consistently and responsibly.

7.            Singapore is mindful that we are one of these aviation nodes. Pathogens will come through Singapore, and it will spread from Singapore elsewhere, if we are totally honest. In Asia, we are likely among the first to detect a novel pathogen. And if it is detected in Singapore, it can spread across the region and the world rapidly, because we are an aviation hub. What the world can be assured of is this: Singapore will share what we know – freely, quickly and transparently, with no strings attached.

8.            That is why we have built wide-ranging partnerships for information sharing – across ASEAN, with China, Germany and with other partners. As part of this World Health Assembly (WHA), the Singapore Ministry of Health (MOH) has signed a health cooperation memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Philippines and will also sign one with Finland. In addition, CDA will be signing an MOU with the Chinese National Disease Control and Prevention Administration.

9.            We have also partnered the GISAID Global Data Science Initiative, now the largest international source of pathogen genomic data for influenza, COVID-19 and Mpox. Scientists can track how viruses evolve in near real time – helping us spot variants earlier and act faster.

10.         Singapore is hosting the GISAID Data Science Centre at our Agency for Science, Technology and Research Bioinformatics Institute, and we support its data processing operations. Through this collaboration, we aim to shorten the time between a signal and a response.

11.         Second, vaccine production. This remains a ticket out of any pandemic involving a novel pathogen. Fortunately, modern medical science is on our side, especially with mRNA vaccines.

12.         The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, or CEPI, has launched the 100 Days Mission, to develop safe and effective vaccines within 100 days of identifying a new pandemic threat.

13.         Singapore is encouraged by CEPI’s progress. The mission draws on global networks of laboratories, manufacturers, researchers and regulators. It is developing prototype vaccine solutions across key virus families, so that when a pandemic crisis arrives, much of the groundwork is already done.

14.         We support these efforts through technical exchanges and research collaborations with CEPI and its partners, and continue to contribute to CEPI’s call for investment.

15.         More importantly, our scientists are aligning our domestic vaccine R&D efforts to CEPI’s 100 Days Mission. Being a small country, it is best that we focus on an area meaningful to CEPI’s mission. Given our experience with SARS and COVID-19, we are devoting our resources to developing vaccines against coronaviruses.

16.         Third, we need faster and trusted regulatory pathways for vaccines. In a pandemic, we operate in a fog of war – and may not have the full data we would expect in peacetime to evaluate and approve a vaccine.

17.         During COVID-19, Singapore approved vaccines through our Pandemic Special Access Route, or PSAR. We drew on the best available evidence – including assessments by trusted jurisdictions and partners – to make timely decisions. In other words, without the benefit of full data, we had to balance between speed and standards. This constraint will not change in the next pandemic.

18.         A practical step we can now take is to scale pathways like PSAR internationally. If we rely on a single regulatory authority to perform this function during a pandemic, it could become a bottleneck and face undue pressure.

19.         Instead, we can build a network of trusted national regulators, working alongside existing centralised processes such as the WHO prequalification process. If regulators can rely on one another’s assessments and share the workload, we can better balance safety, standards and speed in a pandemic crisis. To be clear, ultimately, every jurisdiction still makes its own decision, but the network can help speed up the work, and its assessment will be a good reference.

20.         Fourth, we need manufacturing capacity for vaccines. Vaccine inequality was a huge problem during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. But it is fundamentally a supply problem. During COVID-19, it was worsened by export restrictions and insufficient production capacity.

21.         We have concluded that, in peacetime, we must build sustainable surge capacity through “warm” manufacturing hubs. “Warm” because it is unrealistic, and too costly to keep idle plants waiting for a pandemic. These facilities need routine production in peacetime and must be able to pivot quickly to vaccine manufacturing and scale up in a crisis.

22.         Singapore has attracted investments in vaccine production across platforms, such as mRNA and recombinant protein, as well as a fill-and-finish facility. None of them are Singapore companies, they are all multinationals. Given our small domestic market, much of this capacity is intended to support the region and beyond. But sustainability remains key, and the ability of these facilities to negotiate technology transfer and pivot to pandemic vaccine production remains untested.

23.         This is a priority Singapore must address. Ultimately, our collective goal should be a global network of production facilities that can eliminate vaccine inequality and serve as a safety net for all. Supporting such a network requires countries to eschew export controls and keep supply chains intact during a pandemic.

24.         This is the focus of the Regionalised Vaccine Manufacturing Collaborative. It was launched in 2022 by the World Economic Forum, the US National Academy of Medicine and CEPI.

25.      Let me conclude. We are in a better position today than we were five years ago. Medical science has advanced, and our ability to prevent, detect and respond has strengthened. But preparedness is never automatic. It depends on the choices we make now.

26.       The choice before us now is to build global systems that can move fast in a crisis. Our action today will translate into many lives saved in the future. Thank you.