Common Questions

What is the Pasteur Network and where does it operate?

The Pasteur Network is an association of about 33 research institutes in 25 countries affiliated with the Institut Pasteur in Paris. It operates across West Africa, Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America, providing laboratory, sequencing, and outbreak response capacity in regions where public health infrastructure is limited.Source: Pasteur Network

How is the Pasteur Network involved in the H5N1 vaccine trial?

CEPI expanded its partnership with the Pasteur Network on 21 April 2026 to build regional vaccine R&D and surveillance capacity in West Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Caribbean as part of the H5N1 mRNA Phase 3 infrastructure.Source: CEPI

Is the Pasteur Network involved in the MV Hondius hantavirus investigation?

Yes. Institut Pasteur de Dakar, a Pasteur Network member, is running serology, sequencing, and metagenomic analysis on MV Hondius cluster samples alongside NICD South Africa to determine Andes strain characteristics and potential secondary transmission.Source: CIDRAP

Background

The Pasteur Network is an international association of approximately 33 research and public health institutes in 25 countries, connected by a shared scientific heritage and formal affiliation to the Institut Pasteur in Paris. Member institutes span West Africa (Institut Pasteur de Dakar), Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, and the Pacific. Each member operates independently with its own funding and governance, but the network provides shared scientific standards, training pathways, biosafety infrastructure, and inter-lab sequencing and diagnostic protocols. The Pasteur Network is a first-line laboratory resource for outbreak response in many of the regions where it operates, combining national-authority legitimacy with international scientific standards.

CEPI expanded its partnership with the Pasteur Network on 21 April 2026 to build regional vaccine R&D capacity across West Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Caribbean as part of the Moderna H5N1 Phase 3 infrastructure. The expansion adds Pasteur Network laboratory capacity to the H5N1 surveillance footprint, relevant because member institutes including Institut Pasteur de Dakar are conducting serology, sequencing and metagenomic analysis on MV Hondius cluster samples alongside NICD South Africa. The Pasteur Network's geographic footprint in endemic-disease regions gives the CEPI arrangement practical value beyond the trial itself: network labs can generate pathogen-surveillance data that feeds into the next round of WHO R&D Blueprint priority pathogen decisions.

Source Material

Pasteur Network — Wikipedia Pasteur Network — official website

How the World Sees Them

France

The French government provides core funding to the Paris Institut Pasteur and has a diplomatic interest in the Pasteur Network as a vehicle for French scientific influence in former colonies across Africa and Indochina.

CEPI donors

CEPI's expansion of the Pasteur Network partnership is seen as a practical mechanism for distributing H5N1 vaccine R&D and regulatory capacity beyond the US-EU pharma axis, addressing equity concerns in the 100 Days Mission framework.

West Africa

Pasteur Network institutes are first-line outbreak laboratories for countries with limited national reference-lab capacity; their involvement in both the Hondius sequencing and the CEPI H5N1 expansion reflects their dual surveillance and R&D role.