Pandemic Preparedness: Defining the UN-level Strategy for the Summit of the Future
Pandemic preparedness is vital for protecting public health, maintaining economic stability, ensuring global health security, strengthening healthcare systems, fostering scientific advancements, reducing risks, and engaging communities. By investing in preparedness, we can minimize the impact of pandemics and build a more resilient world as a key pillar of SDG 3.
The world’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic revealed significant shortcomings in global public health emergency preparedness. Particularly in Africa, access to vaccines was unavailable, highlighting the need for better pandemic prediction and prevention. Vaccine hesitancy underscored the importance of engaging all sectors of society. Africa’s experience with HIV/AIDS and TB epidemics provided valuable expertise and infrastructure for the COVID-19 response. However, funding shortages and the far-reaching impact of COVID-19 necessitate the establishment of a multi-sectoral entity to strengthen disease control strategies and prepare for future pandemics.
South Africa and other African countries propose the establishment of the African Institute for the Preparedness and Prevention of Pandemics (AIP3). AIP3, headquartered in South Africa with networks in other Southern African Development Community (SADC) member countries, will be an inclusive and interdisciplinary research institute. It will adopt a holistic approach to anticipate, respond to, and recover from future pandemics, focusing on rapid reactivity, real-time data, scalability, and broad engagement.
AIP3’s goals align with those of the National Institute for the Preparedness and Prevention of Pandemics (NIP3) proposed by a consortium of South African universities. The five goals of AIP3/NIP3 are to:
- Strengthen detection and monitoring of emerging threats.
- Reduce the emergence and spread of pandemics.
- Improve the efficacy and accessibility of diagnostic tests and treatments.
- Mitigate the socio-economic fallout of pandemic events.
- Apply learnings to enhance future pandemic responses.
AIP3 will establish a research network, bringing together leading scientists and cross-sectoral partners to advance these goals and address broader societal challenges both during and between pandemics.
The COVID-19 pandemic has provided valuable lessons and insights into the vulnerabilities and gaps in our preparedness and response systems. By learning from this experience, we can identify areas that need improvement, update protocols and guidelines, and implement measures to handle future pandemics and biological disasters better. It also demonstrated the potential for viral mutations and the emergence of new variants. Pandemic preparedness is crucial to monitor and understand these variants, develop effective diagnostics, treatments, and vaccines, and implement measures to prevent their spread.
Preparedness allows for early detection and targeted interventions to control the transmission of emerging variants. Preparedness efforts prioritize health system strengthening, including developing surge capacity, robust supply chains, and a trained healthcare workforce. This enhances the resilience and responsiveness of healthcare systems to manage future pandemics effectively.
Preparedness efforts foster collaboration between countries, international organizations, and scientific communities, enabling the sharing of information, resources, and best practices. This collaboration enhances our ability to respond collectively to future pandemics and address global health challenges. They focus on strengthening vaccine distribution systems and ensuring fair and timely vaccine access for all populations, including marginalized and vulnerable communities. This helps prevent vaccine inequities and reduces the impact of future pandemics.
COVID-19 accelerated scientific research and innovation in diagnostics, treatments, and vaccines. Pandemic preparedness builds on this momentum by investing in research infrastructure, advancing scientific knowledge, and facilitating the development of innovative tools and technologies. Preparedness ensures we are better equipped to respond to future pandemics with evidence-based interventions.
Due to global warming, increasing population and mobility, there is an increased risk of spill-over of new pathogens to humans that may cause the next pandemic. Moreover, the geopolitical instability increased the risk of using bioweapons and biological disasters.
The importance of pandemic preparedness has been recognized and highlighted in several high levels policies such as by G20, OECD, and the US Biodefence Strategy.