“Global health is a team sport”: World Health Summit in Berlin
Berlin summit highlights the case for renewed global health cooperation
Poinews.com – Health challenges are becoming more frequent, more interconnected and harder for individual countries to manage alone, a message at the World Health Summit in Berlin has underlined. Professor Dr Axel R. Pries, president of the World Health Summit, argues that international cooperation must regain momentum if health systems are to be better prepared for future crises.
Pries, a physician and physiologist who has led the Berlin-based summit for six years, previously served as dean and board member at Charité. He has called for stronger multilateral action at a time when governments are increasingly viewing health policy through domestic political priorities.
“Global health is a team sport.”
That principle, he suggests, should guide responses not only to outbreaks but also to long-term health pressures such as mental health conditions and non-communicable diseases.
A “political virus” in global health
During the World Health Summit Regional Meeting 2026 in Nairobi in April, Pries warned that the world did not face a biological virus in this case, but a political one. Asked to explain the phrase, he pointed to the spread of increasingly national and, at times, nationalist approaches to health policy.
“We are dealing with a global situation in which many countries are looking at health increasingly from a very national, sometimes even nationalist perspective.”
He described this trend as a virus because it appears to be spreading across regions and has become a worldwide problem. In his view, its danger lies in the way it can obstruct effective joint solutions.
Local measures remain necessary, Pries said. Governments must address the needs of their own communities and build services that work on the ground. Yet national action alone cannot adequately confront threats that cross borders, affect supply chains or require shared scientific knowledge.
The Covid-19 pandemic, he said, demonstrated the limits of isolated responses. The same lesson applies well beyond infectious disease, including to mental health and non-communicable diseases, often referred to as NCDs. His conclusion is that multilateral institutions and mechanisms need renewed political backing.
Europe’s potential role
Debate over the United States stepping back in parts of global health policy has prompted questions about whether Europe should assume a more prominent position. Pries does not frame Europe as the sole leader, but as one of several important actors able to contribute expertise, capacity and experience.
He argues that Europe has substantial strengths across the medical innovation chain, from research to real-world application. He also noted that researchers from Berlin and Würzburg were among those awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for work on optogenetics only days before the discussion.
Europe is also home to major companies in pharmaceuticals, medical technology and related fields. These assets provide a strong base for influencing global health efforts, provided countries can coordinate their resources effectively.
“I would not say that Europe should be the leader. But Europe should be one of the leading actors – and it absolutely has what it takes.”
Another advantage, Pries said, is Europe’s experience of cooperation among countries with differing political and social systems. That history does not remove disagreements, but it can offer useful lessons for building international partnerships in a period of greater geopolitical uncertainty.
Germany within a broader European effort
Germany can play a significant role inside Europe, particularly because it is the continent’s largest economy and has substantial scientific and medical capabilities. Pries said the country is well placed to send signals and show leadership, from research through to practical implementation.
However, he stressed that Germany cannot act effectively in isolation. A meaningful European role depends on countries working together as equals, including partners such as France and the United Kingdom. The continent’s health and life-sciences capacity is distributed across many states rather than concentrated in one capital.
He pointed to Denmark and Novo as an example of how major companies based in different European countries can collectively have a decisive presence in global markets. The wider implication is that Europe’s influence will depend on connecting national strengths instead of treating them as separate projects.
Reducing strategic health dependencies
For Pries, the changing relationship between the United States, Europe and China adds urgency to the need for common strategies. If countries cannot agree on shared priorities now, he warned, managing health security will become much more difficult.
Europe’s diversity can slow joint decision-making, particularly when threats require fast action. At the same time, that diversity brings knowledge, institutions and industrial capabilities that can strengthen collective resilience when they are aligned.
The central challenge is to prevent avoidable strategic dependencies from taking hold in the health sector. Once such dependencies become entrenched, correcting them can be expensive and politically difficult. Planning ahead is therefore not simply a matter of crisis response; it is part of protecting the capacity to make independent choices during future emergencies.
Preparedness at home, partnership abroad
In Germany, policymakers have been discussing a proposed Health Security Act intended to address a long-standing gap in crisis preparedness and security legislation. A draft is expected to be discussed in early 2027.
Pries views the initiative as an important move if it is designed to improve Germany’s ability to withstand global health crises. Such legislation forms part of pandemic preparedness, helping establish the structures needed before an emergency occurs rather than after it has escalated.
But domestic preparedness and international cooperation are not competing goals. National resilience can strengthen a country’s ability to contribute to a collective response, while cooperation can provide the information, coordination and support that national systems cannot generate alone. The message from Berlin is that lasting health security will require both: effective action close to home and a recommitment to working together across borders.
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