World remains unprepared to face new pandemics, experts warn
(VOVWORLD) - Global reform efforts to better ward off new pandemic threats have been slow and fragmented, leaving the world as unprepared as when Covid-19 first surfaced, the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response said in a report released on Wednesday.
 Medical workers are taking care of a COVID-19 patient at a field hospital in Shanghai, China. (Photo: Xinhua/VNA) |
The report cautioned that the world is still "tinkering" and its inaction is laying "the groundwork for another pandemic".
Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, one of the report’s authors, told reporters that the world has right now the very same tools and the same system to respond to a pandemic threat that existed in December 2019. And those tools just weren't good enough.
Clark acknowledged that the transformative work required at the global level to prevent the next pandemic has begun, and that new mechanisms have been set up since COVID-19 surfaced that have made it possible to deliver 1.5 billion vaccine doses to poorer countries. She also praised the efforts under way to diversify the production of vaccines and antivirals.
More secure and flexible funding for WHO and a dedicated pandemic fund are taking shape.