An Invisible Line of Defense: How Laboratory Workers in Asia-Pacific Protect Against the Next Pandemic

By The Global Fund

July 17^th, 2025

Header image: The Global Fund/Jiro Ose

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At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, while most people were under lockdown, Dr. Revathy Arushothy was heading into the laboratory – working around the clock to help keep her country safe.

“Our laboratories were working 24/7,” says the microbiologist, who works as a researcher on a team at the Institute for Medical Research in Malaysia. “We kept going. What we do in the laboratory helps protect people and supports the well-being of the country.”

From the outside, laboratories seem calm and controlled. But behind the glass and metal there is pressure, precision and the weight of responsibility.

Laboratory analyst Dhira Dwi uses a GeneXpert machine to detect a presumptive case of drug-resistant tuberculosis at Ibnu Sina Hospital in Gresik, East Java, Indonesia. The Global Fund/Vincent Becker

Inside, specialists handle invisible threats: tracking drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB), managing biohazards and identifying and confirming new strains of infectious pathogens before they spread.

Well-functioning laboratories are vital in ensuring global health security. And as a growing number of crises converge, that role is becoming even more critical.

This is clear in Asia-Pacific, which is experiencing a collision of public health threats: endemic diseases like HIV, TB and malaria; new and re-emerging viruses like dengue and avian influenza; and now, the health impacts of more frequent and intense weather- and climate-related disasters.

A family evacuates flooding following Typhoon Yagi in September 2024, in Hanoi Viet Nam. © UNICEF/UNI643208/Pham Ha Duy Linh

The region experiences more extreme weather events per year than any other, with typhoons, floods and extreme heat directly affecting disease transmission, health care access and population mobility – creating the conditions for new diseases to emerge and making existing ones harder to control.

Laboratories are key pillars of public health, and the people working in them are often the first ones to sound the alarm when something goes wrong. But no laboratory can do it alone. Timely communication and collaboration between laboratory, epidemiology and health emergency response professionals across regions and borders can mean the difference between a contained outbreak and a full-blown public health emergency.

Stronger Skills to Fight Infectious Disease

Dr. Arushothy is one of hundreds of specialists across Asia and the Pacific who are working to strengthen disease detection and health security through the Regional Public Health Laboratory Network (the RPHL Network).

Dr. Revathy Arushothy from the Infectious Disease Research Center at the Institute for Medical Research in Malaysia, at a training session organized by the Regional Public Health Laboratory Network (RPHLN) in Bangkok, Thailand. The Global Fund/Jiro Ose

The platform connects laboratory technicians and leaders to collaborate, share information and strengthen laboratory systems across the region to better detect and respond to emerging health threats – and ultimately save lives.

The RPHL Network is supported by the Global Fund through the Asia Pacific Regional Initiative on Laboratories (APRIL), a component of the Laboratory Systems Integration Fund – financed by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Abbott Fund and IQVIA.

The initiative supports governments and public health agencies to upgrade skills, set quality standards, boost biosafety and biosecurity capabilities and connect expertise across borders. At its heart, APRIL is helping countries become better prepared to detect and respond to infectious disease threats.

An Invisible Line of Defense: How Laboratory Workers in Asia-Pacific Protect Against the Next Pandemic

“If our neighbors experience an outbreak, we’ll feel it too,” says Thiraphot Singtohin, a public health leader from northeastern Thailand. “So we focus on disease control not only in our country, but along our borders. Collaboration is essential.”

The model is deliberately practical. Participants return home not only with knowledge, but also as local trainers themselves – extending the impact of the sessions and ensuring that learning continues within each health system.

“You come to one of the training sessions, you learn,” says Jintana Sriwongsa, Regional Program Director of the RPHL Network based in Bangkok. “We expect that when you go back home, you train your colleagues.”

Empowering Local Communities Helps Protect Everyone’s Health Security

The training courses themselves are only part of the story. The RPHL Network is not just building knowledge – it is fostering deep networks of trust and collaboration across the region.

For Jintana, building relationships and familiarity across countries is part of outbreak preparedness.

“We identify experts – Dr. X is good with this, Dr. Y with that – so we know who to call when a crisis hits.”

Jintana Sriwongsa, Regional Program Director of the RPHL Network, Bangkok. The Global Fund/Jiro Ose

And while funding for global health is under pressure, the Global Fund’s support for regionally led, cost-effective models like the RPHL Network as well as National Public Health Reference Laboratories are delivering strong returns.

These investments don’t just help detect and contain today’s threats – they also build permanent capacity. By training local experts, strengthening laboratory systems and creating networks that transcend borders, they’re helping countries respond faster, share knowledge more freely and stay ahead of the next crisis – all while making smart use of limited resources.

The model also increases equity and access – particularly in rural or lower-resourced areas. From waste management protocols to national quality standards, participants are integrating what they learn to fit the circumstances of their local context.

In Thailand’s Khon Kaen province, Jamrat Poolkua, director of a regional laboratory center, emphasizes how her team not only teaches hospital staff, but also village health volunteers, on how to manage biological waste safely.

“We want the knowledge to reach the grassroots,” she says. “So communities can protect themselves.”

Between 2024 and 2027, the Global Fund will invest over US$400 million in expanding and strengthening laboratories and multi-disease diagnostics capacities in 90 countries around the world. These investments are vital to protect global health security.