GENEVA: An awkward query stays 5 years after Covid-19 started its lethal rampage: is the world able to deal with the subsequent pandemic?
The World Health Organization, which was on the coronary heart of the pandemic response, has been galvanising efforts to find out the place the subsequent menace may come from and to make sure the planet is able to face it.
But whereas the UN well being company considers the world extra ready than it was when Covid hit, it warns we’re not practically prepared sufficient.
View from the WHO
Asked whether or not the world was higher ready for the subsequent pandemic, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus mentioned just lately: “Yes and no”.
“If the subsequent pandemic arrived at this time, the world would nonetheless face a few of the similar weaknesses and vulnerabilities,” he warned.
“But the world has additionally realized most of the painful classes the pandemic taught us, and has taken vital steps to strengthen its defences.”
Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention director, mentioned it was a matter of when, not if, we are going to face one other pandemic.
“There’s lots that has improved due to the 2009 (H1N1) flu pandemic but in addition due to Covid. But I feel the world just isn’t prepared for an additional infectious illness huge outbreak or pandemic.”
Expert views
The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, created by the WHO, was blunt in its evaluation.
“In 2025, the world just isn’t able to sort out one other pandemic menace,” it mentioned, citing continued inequality in entry to funding and pandemic-fighting instruments like vaccines.
Renowned Dutch virologist Marion Koopmans instructed AFP the success and speedy manufacturing of mRNA vaccines had been a “sport changer” for the subsequent pandemic.
However, she warned that “a seeming improve in vaccine hesitancy”, amid “staggering” ranges of disinformation, meant that if one other pandemic arrived quickly, “we’d have main points with using vaccines due to that.”
Meg Schaeffer, a illness epidemiologist on the US-based SAS Institute, mentioned it might take public well being companies 4 to 5 years to improve methods to detect and share info quicker.
“No, I do not suppose that we’re any extra ready than we had been with Covid,” she mentioned.
However, “I do believe that we as society know what to do… to guard one another,” via distancing, facemasks, and limiting journey and private interactions, she added.
Mitigation efforts
Steps have been taken to organize for the subsequent pandemic and deal with its affect.
The new WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence in Berlin works on collaborative surveillance to higher detect threats and mitigate them.
The World Bank’s Pandemic Fund has issued $885 million in grants since 2022 to fund practically 50 tasks throughout 75 nations.
An mRNA expertise switch hub was arrange in South Africa to enhance native vaccine manufacturing, whereas a Global Training Hub for Bio-manufacturing was established in South Korea to enhance responses.
New international alarm button
After Covid struck, the WHO on January 30, 2020 declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) — the best alarm stage below the International Health Regulations.
But most nations didn’t jolt into motion till Tedros described the outbreak as a pandemic on March 11 that yr.
To deal with this, the well being laws had been amended final June to incorporate a brand new, increased “pandemic emergency” stage of alarm, requiring nations to take “speedy” coordinated motion.
Pandemic treaty
In December 2021, nations determined to begin drafting an accord on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, to assist avert a repeat of the failings uncovered by Covid.
After quite a few negotiation rounds, the WHO’s 194 member states have broadly agreed on what to incorporate, however there are a number of remaining sticking factors.
A key fault line lies between Western nations with main pharmaceutical business sectors and poorer nations cautious of once more being sidelined.
One excellent concern is the proposed obligation to shortly share rising pathogens, after which the pandemic-fighting advantages derived from them, like vaccines.
The deadline for reaching a deal has been pushed again a yr to May 2025.
Looking for subsequent threats
Global consultants have been working arduous to find out the place the subsequent pandemic menace will come from.
Tom Peacock, a virologist at Imperial College London, instructed AFP the opportunity of an H5N1 hen flu pandemic ought to be taken “very significantly”.
The WHO tasked greater than 200 impartial scientists to guage 1,652 pathogens, largely viruses. They recognized greater than 30 precedence pathogens.
Among them had been those who trigger Covid-19, Ebola and Marburg, Lassa fever, MERS, SARS and Zika.
Also on the checklist is “Disease X” — a placeholder for a pathogen at the moment unknown to trigger human illness.
The present plans goal at amassing broad data, instruments and countermeasures that could possibly be quickly tailored to rising threats.
Is the world prepared for the subsequent pandemic? – Times of India
