After its spread.. Is the world ready for the new pandemic?
“The answer is yes and no,” said Tedros Dahanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, which has been at the heart of the battle to combat Covid-19.
He added: “If a new pandemic occurred today, the world would face the same vulnerabilities.” He added, “But the world also learned painful lessons from the pandemic and took important steps to strengthen its defenses.”
According to Maria Van Kerkhove, the American epidemiologist who heads the Department of Prevention and Preparedness for Epidemics and Pandemics at the World Health Organization: “Many things have improved thanks to the 2009 H1N1 influenza epidemic and also thanks to Covid.”
“But I think the world is not ready to face another pandemic or a mass epidemic,” she added.
“The world is not ready”
The WHO’s Independent Expert Group on Epidemic Preparedness and Response puts it bluntly: “In 2025, the world will not be prepared to combat a new pandemic threat” because of the inequalities that persist in access to financing and tools needed to combat pandemics, such as vaccines.
Dutch virologist Marion Koopmans explained to Agence France-Presse that the success and speed of producing vaccines based on messenger RNA technology may “change the rules of the game” during the next global health crisis.
But she is concerned that using it to combat a future threat will face “major problems,” especially due to the “huge” level of misinformation.
Tom Peacock, a virologist at Imperial College in London, said that the possibility of a H5N1 bird flu pandemic should be taken “seriously.” Currently, the virus is not transmitted between humans, but it is widespread in many animal species.
“I don’t think we are more prepared than we were with the Covid epidemic,” Meg Schaefer, an epidemiologist at the American SAS Institute, told AFP. (Arabic)
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