Is the world ready for the next pandemic?

WHO: World is not fully ready for the next pandemic despite improvements since Covid.

Listen to article

GENEVA:

An awkward question remains five years after Covid-19 began its deadly rampage: is the world ready to handle the next pandemic?

The World Health Organization, which was at the heart of the pandemic response, has been galvanising efforts to determine where the next threat might come from and to ensure the planet is ready to face it.

But while the UN health agency considers the world more prepared than it was when Covid hit, it warns we are not nearly ready enough.

Asked whether the world was better prepared for the next pandemic, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said recently: "Yes and no".

"If the next pandemic arrived today, the world would still face some of the same weaknesses and vulnerabilities," he warned.

"But the world has also learned many of the painful lessons the pandemic taught us, and has taken significant steps to strengthen its defences."

Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO's epidemic and pandemic preparedness and prevention director, said it was a matter of when, not if, we will face another pandemic.

"There's a lot that has improved because of the 2009 (H1N1) flu pandemic but also because of Covid. But I think the world is not ready for another infectious disease massive outbreak or pandemic."

The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, created by the WHO, was blunt in its assessment. "In 2025, the world is not ready to tackle another pandemic threat," it said, citing continued inequality in access to funding and pandemic-fighting tools like vaccines.

Renowned Dutch virologist Marion Koopmans told AFP the success and speedy production of mRNA vaccines were a "game changer" for the next pandemic.

However, she warned that "a seeming increase in vaccine hesitancy", amid "staggering" levels of disinformation, meant that if another pandemic arrived soon, "we would have major issues with the use of vaccines because of that."

Meg Schaeffer, a disease epidemiologist at the US-based SAS Institute, said it would take public health agencies four to five years to upgrade systems to detect and share information faster. "No, I don't think that we're any more prepared than we were with Covid," she said.