Bird flu shows world not ready for future pandemics: report

Rising cases of avian flu in mammals, including U.S. cattle, serve as a stark warning that the world is not prepared to fend off future pandemics, according to a report released Tuesday, urging leaders to act quickly.

More than four years into the COVID-19 pandemic, politicians are “playing into negligence” by not devoting enough money or effort to avoid a repeat of the disaster, the report says.

H5N1 avian flu is increasingly spreading to mammals, including cattle on U.S. farms as well as some humans, raising concerns that the virus could spark a future pandemic.

“If H5N1 started spreading from person to person, the world would likely be submerged again,” Helen Clark, report co-author and former New Zealand prime minister, told a conference in press.

It could even be “potentially more disastrous than COVID,” Clark said.

“We are simply not equipped enough to stop outbreaks before they spread further,” she said, also pointing to a more deadly strain of mpox that particularly affects children in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Although rich countries have vaccines that could combat this mpox epidemic, they have not been made available to the central African country, she said.

Today, two people died from the mpox strain in South Africa, illustrating how negligence can lead to the spread of these pathogens, she said.

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

Despite the panel’s advice in 2021, “the funds now available pale in comparison to what is needed, and high-income countries cling too tightly to traditional charity-based approaches to equity,” Clark said.

The report highlights that WHO members have still not reached a highly controversial agreement on the pandemic, mainly due to differences between wealthy countries and those that have felt adrift during the COVID crisis.

The report calls on governments and international organizations to agree a new deal on the pandemic by December, as well as to fund more efforts to boost vaccine production, strengthen the power of the WHO and boost national efforts to combat viruses.

To highlight the potential threat, the report references modeling research suggesting there is a 50/50 chance the world will face a pandemic of similar magnitude to COVID within the next 25 years.

© 2024 AFP