On 14 May, the Jornadas GHTM 2026 took place at the Institute de Higiene e Medicina Tropical, Universidade NOVA de Lisboa (IHMT NOVA), bringing together researchers, clinicians health professionals, institutional partners, and international collaborators to reflect on some of the most pressing challenges shaping the future of Global Health.
Under the theme “Rethinking Global Health: One Health, Mobility and Future Challenges”, the conference promoted interdisciplinary debate around the future of Global Health and the urgent need for integrated and collaborative responses to emerging health threats. Held in a hybrid format, the event gathered more than one hundred GHTM researchers, health professionals, and institutional partners for an intensive day of discussion focused on the major emerging challenges facing Global Health today.
The inaugural keynote lecture was delivered by Professor Emeritus Paulo Ferrinho under the title “One Health and Global Health: Reflections to Rethink GHTM”, highlighting the need for more integrated, interdisciplinary, and globally connected approaches to health.
This was followed by the roundtable “Global Health – What Future?”, moderated by Miguel Viveiros, Coordinator of R&D Unit GHTM, with contributions from Magda Robalo, António Rendas, Joaquim Saweka, Pedro Póvoa, Sónia Dias, Filomeno Fortes and Paulo Ferrinho.
The debate highlighted the importance of strengthening funding mechanisms, co-creation processes, and local capacity-building strategies, ensuring that communities and local professionals play an active role in developing solutions adapted to their own realities, languages, and health priorities. Participants also emphasized the growing relevance of the One Health approach, integrating human, animal, environmental, food, and planetary health perspectives to respond to increasingly complex global challenges.
Another central theme was the need to reinforce Global Health education and training at both pre- and postgraduate levels, while adapting teaching methods to new generations through innovation, digital transformation, and learning approaches that preserve clinical reasoning and critical thinking. Discussions also addressed the impact of climate change, migration, infectious diseases, heatwaves, wildfires, antimicrobial resistance, and other emerging public health threats on healthcare systems and population preparedness.
Speakers further reflected on the importance of data sovereignty, ethics, artificial intelligence, and equitable partnerships, particularly within collaborations involving African countries and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries network, stressing the need to strengthen technical capacity and responsible leadership in data governance and technology use. Participants recognized that many Global Health challenges are simultaneously local and global, requiring stronger collaboration across institutions, disciplines, governments, civil society, and communities. The discussion also underscored the importance of involving young people and women in decision-making processes, promoting more inclusive leadership models and helping reshape traditional partnership paradigms for the future of Global Health.
Professor Paulo Ferrinho closed the roundtable with a reflection:
In the afternoon, discussions shifted from historical epidemics to future global health challenges through a series of presentations and debates.
Sabrina Li, PhD, from King’s College London, revisited the 1857 yellow fever epidemic in Lisbon, uncovering how environmental and social dynamics shaped disease spread in a pre-vaccination urban context — and what these lessons still teach us about preparing for future epidemics.
Inácio Mandomando, from Centro de Investigação em Saúde de Manhiça (CISM) and GHTM, presented innovative work connecting CHAMPS surveillance data with experimental models using Galleria mellonella to better understand the virulence of bacterial pathogens associated with childhood diarrhoeal disease in Mozambique.
Elsa Duarte, from University of Évora, explored the practical meaning of the One Health approach from a veterinary perspective, highlighting how human and animal mobility contribute to the spread of infectious diseases across borders. Her message was clear: One Health must move beyond theory into concrete operational action.
Later, the roundtable discussion “Health and Mobility: New Approaches to Travel-Related Challenges”, moderated by Sofia Rodrigues, brought together Kamal Mansinho, Teresa Baptista, João Borges da Costa, Liliana Rodrigues, and Filomena Pereira for a multidisciplinary debate on the evolving realities of travel health.
Discussions highlighted the growing complexity of travel medicine, including the need for updated vaccination strategies, tailored pre-travel counselling, and better awareness of destination-specific infectious risks.
Special attention was given to cruise tourism and hantaviruses in the context of travel, ageing travellers with comorbidities, as well as the rise of younger travellers seeking adventure and nature-based experiences, often with greater exposure to fungal, parasitic, dermatological, and vector-borne diseases.
Experts also addressed the global challenge of antimicrobial resistance, including resistant sexually transmitted infections that may remain asymptomatic and difficult to diagnose, reinforcing the importance of surveillance, molecular diagnostics, and targeted laboratory investigation.
The panel emphasized responsible travel behaviours and prevention strategies — from STI awareness and pre-exposure prophylaxis to sun protection, insect bite prevention, and post-travel monitoring of symptoms and skin lesions.
Across all interventions, one message stood out: global mobility demands stronger preparedness, interdisciplinary collaboration, and proactive public health responses to emerging health threats.
The conference further reinforced the strategic role of the Universidade NOVA de Lisboa ecosystem in advancing integrated approaches to health education and research. Participants pointed to the growing collaboration between NOVA schools, research units, postgraduate programmes, and community-based projects as a unique opportunity to position NOVA as a leading institution in health sciences and global health.
A significant milestone discussed during the conference was the ambition to strengthen cooperation across the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, including proposals for joint public health training programmes, interdisciplinary global health initiatives, and broader collaboration involving ministries of health, veterinary authorities, and environmental sectors.
Professor Filomeno Fortes, Director of IHMT NOVA, challenged participants to transform discussion into action, emphasizing that meaningful progress in global health depends on stronger partnerships, sustainable funding, interdisciplinary research, and the ability to translate scientific knowledge into concrete public health interventions.
The Jornadas GHTM 2026 ultimately reinforced a central message: addressing the health challenges of the future will require collaboration across disciplines, sectors, countries, and communities — with equity, innovation, and shared responsibility at the centre of global health action.
