How does WHO decide to activate GOARN for a specific outbreak?
Executive summary
WHO's decision to activate the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) for a specific outbreak is driven by technical assessment of the event against operational criteria—principally scale, urgency, complexity, capacity gaps and the risk of failure to deliver an adequate response—and by WHO's internal incident-management needs and partner availability; the GOARN Operational Support Team (OST) at WHO then coordinates the practical deployment of experts and resources from the network IASC2C20Humanitarian20System-wide20Scale-Up20Activation20Protocol20for20the20Contr_46h.pdf" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">[1] [2] [3]. Public reporting and network materials describe GOARN as a WHO‑coordinated partnership of hundreds of institutions that provides surge capacity, expert deployment and technical coordination when WHO determines an international or complex national response is required [3] [4] [5].
1. How WHO frames the decision: criteria and triggers
WHO and allied humanitarian mechanisms use a compact set of assessment criteria before triggering system‑wide scale‑up actions and invoking networks like GOARN; IASC guidance adapted to infectious disease emergencies lists five core factors—scale, urgency, complexity, capacity and risk of failure to deliver—that inform whether larger, coordinated international support is needed, and WHO aligns these with International Health Regulations (IHR) assessments when considering activation and scale‑up [1] [2]. These are not formulaic thresholds but decision lenses: an outbreak may be small but complex (novel pathogen, difficult logistics) and therefore justify GOARN engagement, or very large and fast‑moving such that WHO’s Incident Management System and GOARN surge are required to prevent escalation [1] [2].
2. The operational mechanism: OST, partners and deployments
Operationally, GOARN is run day‑to‑day by an Operational Support Team (OST) housed at WHO, which coordinates network activities, communications and outbreak missions, and which helps package requests for experts, labs, and technical support drawn from GOARN’s pool of institutions when a WHO decision calls for activation [3]. The network functions as a coordination and surge mechanism rather than a separate chain of command: once WHO decides additional international technical capability is required, OST mobilizes partner institutions, arranges terms of reference, and supports embedding teams within WHO incident structures or national response efforts [3] [4].
3. Who decides and who is consulted
The decision to activate GOARN is embedded within WHO’s broader emergency and incident management ecosystem: WHO’s incident management and emergency directors evaluate the public‑health risk under IHR criteria, consult with regional offices and relevant partners, and where humanitarian system‑wide scale‑up is considered, IASC principals and invited stakeholders (including GOARN leadership) provide input to formal recommendations—so the activation is both WHO‑led and peer‑informed [1] [2]. GOARN partner capacity and readiness—who can deploy, what expertise is available, and logistical feasibility—also shape the decision in practice, because activation without deployable personnel or laboratory surge would be hollow [3] [4].
4. What activates GOARN in practice: examples and limits of public reporting
Public descriptions of GOARN emphasize past roles in coordinating expert deployment for Ebola, H1N1 and COVID‑19 and note the network’s training and partner base of more than 250 institutions that supply specialists and laboratory support when WHO activates the mechanism [4]. Recent items—such as subnational entities joining the network—illustrate expansion of the partner base (for example, California joining GOARN) but do not change the fundamental decision process: WHO’s assessment of risk and need remains the trigger [5] [3]. Reporting reviewed here documents the criteria and the OST’s coordinating role but does not provide a public, line‑by‑line checklist or a single decision‑authority memo that would allow replication of every activation decision, and therefore some internal deliberations and political considerations are not visible in the sources [1] [2] [3].
5. Alternative perspectives and implicit pressures
Advocates for rapid, transparent activations argue that explicit, public activation thresholds would reduce delay and politicization of assistance requests, while sovereign states sometimes resist international deployments for reasons—diplomatic, reputational or operational—that are not fully detailed in the network’s public materials; those political dynamics can implicitly shape whether WHO requests GOARN engagement or whether domestic authorities accept deployments, yet the reviewed documents focus on operational criteria rather than these political barriers [1] [3]. The available sources therefore show a technically rigorous, partnership‑based activation model administered by WHO and OST, while acknowledging that real‑world activations also hinge on partner readiness and national receptivity—factors not exhaustively documented in public SOPs and network pages [1] [2] [3].