Collaborating Centres, Pathogen Labs and Digital ID: the WHO’s reach goes far deeper than you think
WHO is not just a quasi-supranational body consisting of nations which are either in or out, at government level. Its reach extends to hundreds of non-governmental partner institutions and their work.
Much has been said about the US’s planned withdrawal from the World Health Organization, and whether other nations would do well to follow suit.
Controversies have long surrounded WHO’s sources of funding and its distortion of global health priorities. Plus the planned centralisation of policy, as set out in the Pandemic Agreement, is seen by many as an alarming power grab which would severely harm national –and individual– sovereignty on health matters. “Exit the WHO” has thus become a familiar rallying cry in the medical freedom movement.
But there is a complication. WHO’s operations are in fact enabled by multiple partners, working across and within nation states.
What are the WHO collaborating centres (CCs)?
CCs consist of institutions such as research labs, hospitals, universities and academies – as well as public health agencies and government ministries. The functions of CCs include:
gathering and sharing information
development of technologies
participating in joint research and training
coordination of activities.
There are now approximately 800 WHO CCs worldwide, distributed through ~90 countries. At present, the top 5 countries by number of active CCs are: US (63), UK (60), China and India (59 each), and Australia (44).
A full breakdown of member states with active CCs can be found at https://who.my.site.com/ecc/s/statistical-report . The images below show data for 26th November 2025. Note that if the many discontinued CCs were included, the numbers would be even greater.
In the WHO’s own words:
“The WHO collaborating centres are an essential and cost-effective cooperation mechanism, which enables the Organization to fulfill its mandated activities and to harness resources far exceeding its own.”
In addition to this, WHO has 310 GOARN (Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network) partners. This includes NGO’s, UN agencies, academic and technical organisations, and national public health bodies.
So what’s the problem…?
At first, all this might appear reasonable. What exactly is wrong with a global effort to share knowledge, best practice, and cutting-edge research and technology, for the health and wellbeing of all?
However, it is when we drill deeper that we realise: the reality of CCs might not be quite so benign.
1. Germ biotech: British and US case studies
In October 2025, Dr Tess Lawrie of World Council for Health gave a talk at the Netherlands conference ‘Back to the Future: Restoring Hippocrates, Trust & Sovereignty in Modern Medicine’. As part of her talk, Dr Lawrie drew on the research of Lucinda van Buuren (WCH Australia, and WCH Nursing & Midwifery) and Dr Jeanne Rungby (WCH Scandinavia), to demonstrate why we should be concerned about CCs and their operations. The relevant section is in the eight-minute clip below:
As case studies of what she dubs a “racket of pathogens and pandemics”, Dr Lawrie highlighted the CC laboratories both at Porton Down military facility in the UK, and in the US. She notes:
“It’s interesting how many times ‘viral haemorrhagic fevers’ come up in these terms of reference in these WHO contracts, in many different countries. Why there’s this huge interest in very, very rare haemorrhagic diseases needs to be considered. And their types of activities, interestingly, are ‘outbreaks and emergencies.’ Not ‘preventing outbreaks and emergencies!’”
Connecting all of this with the ‘Pathogen Access & Benefit Sharing’ (PABS) clause from the WHO Pandemic Treaty, her verdict was:
“(PABS) facilitates the trading of pathogens, it facilitates bioweapons research which they call ‘gain of function’ … and then it determines the profit share from the proceeds of this racket. So they are busy trying to figure out: if there’s a new pandemic, there’s this opportunity to make vaccines and diagnostic tests – how do they split that up, how do they share the proceeds of that, who gets to do it, and how much money can everybody make?”
2. Global health digitisation: equity or tyranny
Further research by Lucinda van Buuren highlights a disturbing red flag: the development of WHO’S Global Digital Health Certification Network (GDHCN). This is an important jigsaw piece in the wider digital ID framework, which is being pushed on an international scale with suspicious urgency. The Covid era should leave us in no doubt as to the biosurveillance tyranny that ensues when our medical data becomes public property and is interlinked with every aspect of our daily life.
Yet the way these programmes are described on official WHO channels is a masterclass in doublespeak. On their Digital Health homepage, they express it in the language of equitable health access for all:
“Part of WHO’s strategic vision is for digital health to be supportive of equitable and universal access to quality health services. Digital health can help make health systems more efficient and sustainable, enabling them to deliver good quality, affordable and equitable care.”
On the GDHCN page, however, they reveal a deeper agenda. While still maintaining the noble aims of “better health for all” and “continuity of care”, they repeatedly emphasise “strengthening pandemic preparedness”, “learning from the COVID-19 response” – and of course vaccine documentation. In WHO’s own words:
“Learning from the COVID-19 pandemic response, there is a recognition of an existing gap and continued need for a global mechanism that can support bilateral verification of the provenance of health documents for pandemic preparedness (…) The GDHCN can be used as an infrastructural building block to support additional use cases, which may include, for example (…) verification of vaccination certificates within and across borders...”
So how does the GDHCN work? Essentially, WHO would adopt the role of ‘trust anchor’, allowing member states to use the technology infrastructure in order to bilaterally verify citizens’ health records (as shown below). The WHO claims that it will not have access to individual data. How that works out in practice, and its implications for data security, is another matter.
The infrastructure is dependent on the digitisation of health records, and the wheels are already in motion:
In 2023, WHO announced the GDHCN launch as a partnership with the European Commission, based on the EU’s digital Covid-19 certification system.
WHO is currently on a determined quest to get global health systems digitised – leveraging the expertise of its collaborating centres in pursuit of this aim. WHO/ Europe, for example, has several collaborating centres on the case. In the UK, this now includes the NHS Trust Public Health Wales, which became a collaborating centre for shaping ‘digital health equity’ in November 2025. In Germany, European Campus Rottal-Inn at Deggendorf Institute of Technology (DIT-ECRI) also became a digital health CC in 2025.
Where do we go from here?
In a world of smoke and mirrors, it is easy to get disheartened. Every day, we must all use a combination of knowledge and good judgement to untangle the genuinely benign and helpful from the deceptive and insidious – and this is not always straightforward. Developing both awareness and discernment are key: examining the data with a critical eye; sharing links; raising Freedom of Information requests as and when necessary. In sum, bringing crucial evidence to light.
And always consider the question: cui bono? WHO benefits?
World Council for Health stands for a Better Way.
Disclaimer:
This article is not intended to be used in place of individual medical advice. It cannot be used to diagnose illness or access treatment. Individuals may use the materials provided by World Council for Health to complement the care provided by their qualified, trusted health professionals. All information provided by World Council for Health or in connection with its website is offered to promote consideration by individuals and their trained health care providers of various evidence-based prevention and treatment options. The information on this website is for general informational purposes and is not a substitute for medical advice. Errors and omissions may occur.
