“In the field, we are fortunate to be able to rely on a network of exceptional women and men who work tirelessly to be able to provide a better future for their people. We owe it to ourselves to remain at their side: their courage and determination command respect and give meaning to our commitment.”
Alain Mérieux
The world is undergoing profound changes, leading to crises which multiply in all regions. Whether political, security-related, demographic, economic and climatic in nature, all crises contribute to worsening the health conditions of affected populations, creating an ideal breeding ground of development and spread for epidemics.
Low-income countries are the hardest-hit by these increasingly complex contexts, with mothers and children at the forefront. This is why the Mérieux Foundation, an independent foundation with public interest status, has been fighting infectious diseases affecting vulnerable populations in resource-limited countries since its creation in 1967.
vulnerable populations’ access to diagnostics by strengthening clinical laboratories in national healthcare systems
knowledge-sharing and public health initiatives working with Les Pensières Center for Global Health
local applied research capabilities collaborative programs development
conditions for mothers and children taking a global health approach
driven by international cooperation, to sharing experience and skills, with no boundaries between expertise or sectors
taking into account factors that have a direct impact on health, such as access to care, education and socio-economic support for patients, and nutrition
with sustained support leading to autonomy and local ownership of infrastructures, skills and programs
supported by national teams in the field and long-standing partnerships with local actors
Operating directly in more than 25 countries, the Mérieux Foundation is committed to strengthening local capacities, particularly in clinical biology, in order to improve access to care, surveillance and response to epidemics.
The foundation works side-by-side with local partners and builds networks to mobilize the skills and energies necessary to implement effective and sustainable actions, at the closest of the population’s needs.
It is particularly involved in the public health issues that have the greatest impact in the countries where it operates, such as antimicrobial resistance, tuberculosis, acute respiratory infections, HIV, and emerging pathogens.
Committed to an integrated approach to health, the Mérieux Foundation goes beyond its expertise in biology to include the main and most impactful issues that influence the well-being of the populations in the countries where it operates.
The Mérieux Foundation works independently in the service of global health. By adopting a “One Health” approach, it contributes to achieving several of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
Its cross-functional and international activities are focused on:
Within each of these goals, several targets directly concern the Foundation’s action, such as target 3.3, which aims to end the tuberculosis epidemic worldwide by 2030.
One of the main pillars of the Mérieux Foundation lies in its capacity for direct intervention in the field, from the network of laboratories of excellence built at the source of outbreak-prone regions, to the presence of local teams in 18 countries. To carry out its mission, the Mérieux Foundation can rely on its expertise, its great experience in the field and its local partnerships built up over more than 15 years of international development.
Team: 1 employee
Cotonou
Team: 2 consultants
Bujumbura
Team: 1 employee
Ouagadougou
Team: 3 employees
Phnom Pehn
Team: 3 employees
Pékin
Team: 2 employees
Kinshasa
Team: 78 employees
Headquarters, Lyon
Team: 19 employees
Les Pensières Center for Global Health, Annecy
Team: 3 employees
Conakry
Team: 1 consultant
Team: 13 collaborateurs
Vientiane
Team: 6 employees
Beirut
Team: 9 employees
Antananarivo
Team: 2 employees
Bamako
Team: 7 employees
Mandalay
Team: 1 employee
Niamey
Team: 20 employees
Dakar
Team: 4 employees
Lomé
Team: 1 employee
Mérieux Foundation USA, Washington
Partner laboratory: Rodolphe Mérieux Laboratory within BITID
Chittagong
Partner laboratory: Rodolphe Mérieux Laboratory within Fundhacre Hospital
Rio Branco
Partner laboratory: Rodolphe Mérieux Laboratory within the University of Health Science
Phnom Penh
Partner laboratory: Hygiene and Environment Laboratory at the Centre Pasteur du Cameroun
Yaoundé
Partner laboratory: Christophe Mérieux Laboratory within the Institute of Pathogen
Bejing
Partner laboratory: Rodolphe Mérieux Laboratory within INRB
Goma
Partner laboratory: Rodolphe Mérieux Laboratory within GHESKIO Centers
Port-au-Prince
Partner laboratory: Rodolphe Mérieux Laboratory within the Center of Infectiology Lao Christophe Mérieux
Vientiane
Partner laboratory: Rodolphe Mérieux Laboratory within the Saint Joseph University
Beirut
Partner laboratory: Rodolphe Mérieux Laboratory within the Charles Mérieux Center for Infectious Disease
Antananarivo
Partner laboratory: Rodolphe Mérieux Laboratory within the Charles Mérieux Center for Infectious Disease
Bamako
Partner laboratory: Rodolphe Mérieux Laboratory within the Institut Pasteur du Maroc*
Casablanca
Partner laboratory: Christophe Mérieux Infectious Disease Research Center
Brazzaville
Partner laboratory: National Public Health Reference Laboratory (NPHRL)
Dushanbe
Partner laboratory: Rodolphe Mérieux Laboratory within the Institut Pasteur de Tunis
Tunis
*Projects under construction
Alain MÉRIEUX, President
Dorothée Lintner, Director General
The world experienced profound upsets of many kinds in 2025. We are now dealing with a completely unpredictable environment, where the traditional balancing forces no longer exist. As conflicts multiply and violence continues to rise, the need for healthcare has exploded. Increasingly precarious living conditions, armed conflict, and climate disruption provides fertile soil for the spread of infectious diseases.
Humanity faces more and more emerging or re-emerging infections: widespread mpox in Africa and Madagascar, the return of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in a particularly virulent form, the hantavirus alert, etc. The threat of infectious disease has never been so present, affecting vulnerable populations even more heavily, at a time when development agencies are facing drastic reductions in international humanitarian aid as certain major countries turn inwards.
The Mérieux Foundation has successfully faced up to this context despite the difficulties, demonstrating the resilience of its model.
Against this backdrop, the merger between the Fondation Christophe et Rodolphe Mérieux and the Mérieux Foundation, in effect since April 2025, makes perfect sense, giving our actions a new sustainability and stability and helping to ensure they remain effective and coherent over the long term.
The Mérieux Foundation was thus able to provide urgent help to long-standing partners facing dramatic situations—in Haiti, for example, where it renewed its decisive support for GHESKIO and the Léogâne children’s homes, and in Lebanon, with increased aid to health centers.
At the same time, our Foundation continued its far-reaching activities in the field of diagnostics, training, knowledge sharing, and care for the most fragile members of society—mothers and children.
The P3 laboratory being built at the Institut Pasteur du Maroc is currently being finalized, for example. Opening in late 2026, it will join GABRIEL, an international network of 22 laboratories working to improve epidemiological surveillance and public health. New mother and child health centers have been opened in Lebanon and Senegal. Preparing for the future, we continue to strengthen our partnership agreements on the ground, such as our work with the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Brazil.
The fight against infectious diseases and epidemiological surveillance are global priorities, as recent epidemics have forcefully reminded us. They require constant vigilance and the ability to respond immediately, which are central commitments of our Foundation.
To ensure the continuity of its public health mission in the long term, the Foundation is adapting to a new world order:
We are restructuring our organization to emphasize the importance of the regions, empowering them to take full control of their development with a view to long-term appropriation. This vision was at the core of our thinking 20 years ago, when we chose to hand over the laboratories we created to our local partners, given that they know more about the realities on the ground than we do.
We are strengthening joint funding mechanisms with new partners to optimize the resources available and respond to growing needs as international aid becomes ever-scarcer.
In international forums, we are speaking out on behalf of our partners from countries with limited resources to give greater power to voices from the South and strengthen a dialog that is now more essential than ever.
Among all these initiatives, we aim to remain faithful to our long-standing, highly operational vision of global health by targeting all the factors that influence health. Alongside vital epidemiological surveillance and the necessity of providing medical care for patients, we also want to act on animal health, nutrition, food safety, water, and the environment, together with education and training. An approach directly inspired by Pasteur’s vision, which has guided our Foundation for nearly 60 years, breaking down barriers between human, animal, and environmental health and looking beyond political divisions.
In the brutal and uncertain world we inhabit, we have no choice but to adapt, which involves taking risks and acting without fear. We owe it to our partners, who have been with us for many years, working tirelessly on the ground to fight back against the threat of infection and offering their fellow citizens a better future. They set an example of humanity for us all.
We are proud to work alongside them.
Dorothée Lintner, Director General
Alain Mérieux, President
In a global environment where inequality and unmet health needs have never been greater, the Mérieux family merged its two foundations—the Mérieux Foundation and the Fondation Christophe and Rodolphe Mérieux —into a single entity in 2025: the Mérieux Foundation.
The union of these two foundations, which share the same mission and vision, strengthens the sustainability and coherence of their work, enabling them to continue serving vulnerable populations. The Mérieux Foundation now holds 32% of the capital of Compagnie Mérieux Alliance. This development reaffirms the long-term commitment, combining the group’s industrial strength with the Mérieux Foundation’s on-the-ground work to benefit the most vulnerable, with a single goal: to reduce the threat of infectious diseases worldwide.
The endowment of the Christophe and Rodolphe Mérieux Foundation was transferred free of charge to the Mérieux Foundation.
