FIND and the World Health Organization (WHO) have signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that lays the foundation for accelerating innovation and achieving equitable accesss to quality diagnostics for people globally.

One year on from the historic resolution to strengthen diagnostics, and with FIND as co-lead of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator diagnostics pillar, this new agreement marks a step change in a strengthened partnership between WHO and FIND to speed up both innovation and access to diagnostics, supporting countries to implement the World Health Assembly (WHA) Resolution on diagnostics.

This new agreement establishes FIND as the key strategic partner for diagnostics, working with WHO and others to address a number of priority areas including antimicrobial resistance, infectious diseases like HIV, malaria and tuberculosis, and noncommunicable diseases like hypertension, heart disease, cervical cancer and diabetes.

Signed on 1 June 2024 at a ceremony attended by Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Dr Yukiko Nakatani (Assistant Director-General) and Dr Ayoade Alakija (Board Chair of FIND), the MoU will also see the two organizations building new avenues to share knowledge and scale up critical activities to accelerate access to life-saving diagnostics.