EPIDEMIC PREPAREDNESS

How can we stop infectious disease outbreaks from becoming global health epidemics in an increasingly connected world?

Background

In 2013, Ikana Health Action Lab began an epidemic preparedness initiative. It Takes All of Us rallies us all to put measures in place to prevent epidemics.

“Epidemics on the other side of the world are a threat to us all. No epidemic is just local.”

— Dr. Peter Piot

Health Content

Build awareness, increase understanding, humanize the issue, create educational materials, call communities to action.

Activities: Documentary film, Short Digital Content, Educational Platform and Content, and Global Distribution

Global Advocacy

Align multi-stakeholder audiences to a shared message encouraging high-level commitments and coordinated action.

Activities: Stakeholder Events, Community Screenings, Public Campaign for Science, Partnerships

Tools & Solutions

Strengthen global health capacities by meeting critical needs of frontline healthcare workers and communities.

Activities: Design Research, Co-Creation Workshops, Prototyping, Impact Measurement

IMpact thus far

Click through the highlights below to discover some of the impact our content, advocacy and solutions are having, and who we're working with around the world.

Download 2019 Impact Report

Unseen Enemy, A Documentary Film

Our feature-length documentary film depicts three stories of lives on the frontlines of infectious disease outbreaks in Brazil, Liberia, and the United States. Unseen Enemy conveys how the effects of epidemics reach far beyond the terrible tolls of sickness and death.

Directed and Written by: Janet Tobias

Produced by: Michael Ehrenweig, Rogger Lopez, and Janet Tobias

In Collaboration with

Host a Screening

+ Watch the Film

Online in the U.S.: Amazon.com
For international streaming, please contact us.
On TV: Broadcast Schedule
In your classroom: Request on FilmPlatform
In person at an upcoming event: Events Calendar

Featured

+ Broadcast Highlights

CNN Films

7.2 million P2 viewers

Arte / WDR

344,000 Broadcast Viewers

ArteTV

5,500 viewers (2017 G20 limited digital release)

AfriDocs on BET Africa

Highest rating episode, Aug-Sep 2017
Rating: 0.91, 216% higher than the channel average

Get in touch for specific distribution information.

+ 9 Official Festival Selections

+ 5 Award Nominations

+ 1 film, 7 ways, 11 languages

We cut six films in addition to our original release, tailoring each to a specific stakeholder or public audience in North America, Europe, India, United Kingdom, China, Japan, Brazil, Africa. We also made the film accessible to a global audience, subtitling or dubbing it in 11 langages.

Twitter

100+ Pieces of Short Digital Content

We created 100+ short videos for in-person events, social media channels, and advocacy platforms. They were distributed through a comprehensive global health network on digital media channels as well as in-person events on 5 continents.

Global Advocacy and Leadership

In addition to the film and short content, we developed targeted calls-to-action and worked with partners to implement them. We brought our messages to events and stakeholder meetings around the world, touching every continent and over 60 organizations.

“...we urgently need better cooperation, especially when it comes to infectious diseases.”

— Chancellor Angela Merkel

+ Leadership

We engaged 60+ organizations, institutions, universities, and businesses in film screenings or short video content and dialogues on epidemic preparedness.

+ Engaging stakeholders at 83 events in 29 Countries on 6 Continents

Unseen Enemy engaged people at 83 events in 29 countries on 6 continents on infectious disease epidemics, health systems and global preparedness.

Highlights include:

World Economic Forum
National Academy of Sciences with the National Academy of Medicine
with Dr. Victor Dzau, Dr. Tony Fauci, Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Peter Sands
European Commission with Health Directorate and Directorate General for Research and Innovation
World Health Assembly with the World Bank
Tokyo Screening Event with St. Luke's University
Global Citizen Hamburg Festival in conjunction with the G20
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation 2017 Grand Challenges
Zika Community Screening in Recife in conj. with Global broadcast
China and U.S. CDC at Beijing American Center at U.S. Embassy
Indian International Centre

+ Putting 'Pandemic Preparedness' on the G20 agenda

37,000 signatures: At the end of Unseen Enemy we called audiences to action, asking them to sign a pandemics petition we initiatied with Global Citizen.
Official Handover Prior to the G20, we delivered the petition to German Minister of Health, Hermann Gröhe.
Reaching Millennials: "Fighting the Next Outbreak: 'Unseen Enemy' Director Janet Tobias on the Danger of Pandemics"