The year 2020 was one we won’t soon forget. Never before has the world experienced the spread of a new virus to all corners of the world, killing tens of thousands of people each month, overwhelming health systems, decimating the global economy and impacting the social fabric of communities. In the year since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, more than 2.5 million people have died, and even with a light at the end of the tunnel in sight, the toll continues to rise.

Without question, we have been living through a global tragedy. Yet we need to acknowledge the remarkable mobilization and caring by so many, the rapid pace of scientific discoveries, and the resilience manifested by health systems around the world.

With the identification of COVID-19 as a global health threat, we realized that we had to quickly pivot to respond to the rapidly worsening crisis. After nearly two decades building longstanding relationships in more than 30 countries, we were compelled to reach out to partner with the countries where we work and support efforts to mitigate the threats of this pandemic.

Working in partnership, we responded rapidly to provide training to frontline health workers leveraging remote training platforms, to support the diagnosis and management of COVID-19, to rapidly communicate with the public about how to stay safe, to build SARS-C0V-2 diagnostic capacity, to support the conduct of surveys  to define the status of the pandemic, to fortify under-resourced health systems, to strengthen surveillance systems and to jump-start research for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19.

At the same time, we feared that the COVID-19 pandemic would threaten the hard-won health gains already achieved. Working diligently with partners, we mobilized efforts to rapidly adopt differentiated service delivery models to ensure that recipients of care could continue to receive services.

This annual report highlights some of the work accomplished in 2020, a year like no other. I want to express my pride in the dedication and expertise of ICAP’s global teams and to commend the tireless work of our in-county partners, governmental, non-governmental organizations and civil society groups. And I applaud the government agencies and funders who fully and rapidly appreciated the urgent needs for strategic investment to rapidly scale-up a global response to the COVID-19 pandemic, based on science, safety, and health equity.

The challenges of January 2020, remain with us today. We are keenly aware that the pandemic is far from over. Our knowledge of the virus and the disease it causes has exponentially grown. New vaccines offer hope, but they need to reach all those who need them. Much remains to be done. With our partners and colleagues we will continue to work at full pitch and will not rest in our efforts to stem the tide of this pandemic and to support the communities in its path. Above all, we take with us the lessons from this extraordinary moment in history—that viruses know no borders and that, where global health is concerned, we are all in this together.

Wafaa El-Sadr, MD, MPH, MPA
Director, ICAP at Columbia University
Director, Columbia World Projects
University Professor of Epidemiology and Medicine
Mathilde Krim-amfAR Chair of Global Health