Why in news? India has joined the Centralised Laboratory Network (CLN), which has 15 partner facilities in 13 countries that works to test vaccines which can be used during pandemics and epidemic disease outbreak

Highlights:

• CLN is a part of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the Network is the largest global group which has standardised methods and materials for testing.
• CEPI-funded network also aims to identify the most promising vaccine candidates rapidly and accurately against emerging infectious diseases and the expanded network is working at supporting sustainable regional outbreak preparedness infrastructure.

About Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI)

• It is a foundation that takes donations from public, private, philanthropic, and civil society organisations, to finance research projects which are no longer independent to develop vaccines against emerging infectious diseases.
• Founders : Wellcome Trust, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, India, Norway and World Economic Forum
• It is focused on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) “blueprint priority diseases”, that include (MERS-CoV), (SARS-CoV-2), the Nipah virus, the Lassa fever virus, the Rift Valley fever virus, as well as the Chikungunya virus