Leaders have not done nearly enough to prepare for pandemic threats leaving around eight billion people vulnerable, according to a new report.
In No Time to Gamble: Leaders Must Unite to Prevent Pandemics, former Co-Chairs of The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Helen Clark, take stock of progress against the package of recommendations The Independent Panel made to the World Health Assembly in May 2021 following its eight-month review of the response to COVID-19.
Former Liberia President Sirleaf said in 2024, for everyone who survived COVID-19, a pandemic is a lived experience and not a theoretical threat.
She said, “Instead of taking action to prepare for the next major outbreak, leaders have turned away from pandemic preparedness. This is a gamble with our futures.”
She noted with alarm the number of child deaths occurring as a result of a more dangerous strain of mpox, a dearth of diagnostic testing, and the fact that while vaccines exist, they are not yet available where children are dying.
Clark, former New Zealand Prime Minister, said it was clear in 2021 at the height of COVID-19 that leaders needed to act urgently to make transformative change to the international system, so that there would be a new approach to funding, new ways of managing equitable access to products like vaccines and tests, and a new Framework Convention to complement the rules for outbreaks and pandemics.
“The funds now available pale in comparison to the needs, and high-income countries are holding on too tightly to traditional charity-based approaches to equity,” she said.
“The pandemic agreement is vital and must succeed but has yet to be agreed. In short, if there were a pandemic threat today – such as if H5N1 began to spread from person to person, the world would likely again be overwhelmed.”
The report states there is about ‘a 50% chance’ that the world could face another pandemic threat on the same scale as COVID-19 in the next 25 years, making it even more important to invest in preparedness now.
Some cause for hope
The report points to progress. The 77th World Health Assembly agreement to amend the International Health Regulations (IHR) can result in faster information-sharing from countries and from WHO, more transparent processes in deciding a public health emergency of international concern, and a definition of a pandemic emergency, which was not codified before.
Other progress includes WHO Member States’ decision in 2023 to increase the proportion of unearmarked funding to WHO’s base budget, giving the organisation more independence in allocation of funds.
However, the Co-Chairs also warn that WHO may be spending too much on the operational side of health emergencies including on delivery of supplies, when it should focus attention on ‘excellence in normative and technical support’.
Given the attention both emergencies and technical excellence require, the report suggests WHO Member States consider whether WHO should be split into two entities so that emergency operations do not overwhelm normative work.
Read more on pandemic preparedness in the medical-themed July issue of gasworld global
