The Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) – the Caribbean’s sole regional public health agency and the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) lead for health – joined world leaders, international agencies and global health representatives at the World Health Summit (WHS) 2025 in Berlin, Germany from October 12-14, 2025. The WHS 2025, under the theme, “Taking Responsibility for Health in a Fragmenting World”, brought together over 4,000 on-site participants from 144 countries and more than 40,000 online attendees, featuring 400+ speakers with an equal gender balance.
CARPHA’s Executive Director, Dr Lisa Indar, the only Caribbean-designated speaker at the WHS, provided the unique, regional public health perspective of the Caribbean’s Small Island Developing States (SIDS), characterised by its small size, highly interconnected, porous borders, fragile health systems, tourism dependency and high vulnerability to nature disasters and climate change impacts; necessitating Caribbean-tailored heath interventions to effectively prevent the rapid spread of diseases across the region and across international borders. She highlighted, that given the Caribbean’s context, an outbreak in one island can easily become an outbreak in the region and possibly impact on regional and global health security; and that CARPHA’s advancements in novel early warning and response surveillance systems, laboratory systems, workforce development and partnerships for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response (PPR) funded through the Pandemic Fund grant, provided effective Caribbean tailored solutions. Dr Indar also brought the Caribbean perspectives regarding mental health, climate change and health, the emerging threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and the ageing population, speaking at the following sessions:
- Global Health Lab Session on “What is Next for Global Health Emergencies? How to Sustain a Strong Global Health Emergency Architecture?”
- High-level Panel Discussion on “From Fragmentation to Coherence: Partnering for Pandemic Resilience: Country Leadership at the Core of the Pandemic Fund’s Vision for a Safer World” and
- Global Health Lab Session on “Turning Commitment to Action for Mental Health – Implementing the Outcome of the United Nations (UN) High-Level Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) and Mental Health.”
Dr Indar also engaged in several side meetings with international partners, including a panel discussion on “From Forecasts to the Frontlines: Embedding Climate Services in Health Systems” and an event entitled “Who Pays to Keep the World Safe? – A Call to Empower Countries through Collaborative Surveillance.”