In 2003 a doctor with SARS unknowingly infected several guests while staying at a Hong Kong hotel, and overnight the virus reached across the globe. China is currently battling a bird flu that kills nearly half of the people infected. If Ebola, which transmits through fluids, were spread by air, or if Zika, which has reached over 50 countries, were as deadly as Ebola, we would be facing an unprecedented catastrophe. An uncontrolled outbreak or bioterror attack could result in a contagion that kills over 30 million people.
The World Is Completely Unprepared for a Global Pandemic
And no one is talking about it.
March 15, 2017
Summary.
The threat of another deadly pandemic remains dangerously overlooked. A runaway contagion seeded by an uncontrolled outbreak or bioterror attack could kill over 30 million people. As the Ebola and Zika crises showed, the world is alarmingly unprepared for this threat. We need four remedies:
- Faster pipelines — such as the one that the Coalition on Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) is trying to create — to preemptively develop vaccines for diseases predicted to cause outbreaks in the near future.
- “Point-of-care” diagnostics that can be used by frontline responders or patients themselves to detect infection right away, where they live.
- Greater global coordination to address the currently fragmented responsibility for controlling pandemics.
- Stronger local health systems that can provide routine care and, when needed, coordinate with international responders to contain new outbreaks.