Report: World not ready for future pandemics

[New Sancai Compilation First Release] In response to the surge in avian influenza cases in mammals, including U.S. cattle, a report released on June 25 issued a stark warning: The world is not ready to defend against future epidemics, urging leaders to quickly Take action.

The report said that more than four years since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, politicians have not invested enough money or efforts to avoid a recurrence of the disaster.

H5N1 bird flu is increasingly being transmitted to mammals, including cattle on farms across the United States, as well as some humans, raising concerns that the virus could trigger future pandemics.

"If the H5N1 virus starts to spread from person to person, the world could be overwhelmed again," former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, co-author of the report, told a news conference.

Clark said it could even be "more catastrophic than COVID-19." "We are ill-equipped to stop the epidemic from spreading further," she said, pointing to a more virulent strain of MPOX that disproportionately affects children in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

She said that although rich countries have vaccines that can combat this MPOX epidemic, these vaccines have not yet been provided to Central African countries. Two people have now died from the MPOX strain in South Africa, illustrating how neglect can lead to the spread of this pathogen.

The report was led by Clark and former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who previously served as co-chairs of an independent panel that advises the World Health Organization on pandemic preparedness.

Clark said that despite the panel's recommendations for 2021, "the funding now available pales in comparison to need and high-income countries are too wedded to traditional charity-based equity approaches".

The report points out that WHO members still have not reached a much-discussed epidemic agreement, mainly due to divisions between rich countries and those who feel isolated during the new crown crisis.

The report calls on governments and international organizations to agree on a new epidemic agreement by December and provide more funding to boost vaccine production, strengthen the WHO and advance national efforts to combat the virus.

To highlight the potential threat, the report noted that modeling studies show that the world will have a one in two chance of suffering a pandemic similar to the scale of the new coronavirus within the next 25 years.

(Compiled by: Wang Jimin)

(Editor: Jiang Qiming)

(Source of the article: Compiled and published by New Sancai)