AFP, published on Friday, December 16, 2022 at 05:27
The first case of Covid-19 was detected in China three years ago, the starting point of a pandemic with unprecedented consequences. How can history be prevented from repeating itself? The question mobilizes researchers and governments, but funding is inadequate and answers uncertain.
“We’re not doing enough to be prepared for the next pandemic,” said William Rodriguez, head of Find, a United Nations-funded foundation working to improve access to test screening around the world.
One of the crucial tools to avoid the emergence of a new pandemic like Covid’s are tests that help contain the spread of a disease.
Other devices: identifying viruses or bacteria that could cause the next pandemic, discovering vaccines or emergency treatments, manufacturing and distributing these products, etc.
The goal? Avoiding a new pandemic after three years of Covid. The first case of this disease was diagnosed in China in December 2019. Less than three months later, the World Health Organization (WHO) formalized the pandemic that shook the world.
International negotiations to combat future pandemics began last week within the framework of the WHO. The World Bank has set up a fund specifically for this purpose, which is fed by the G20 countries (currently up to 1.6 billion dollars).
– “Some mutations” –
The initiatives are also private. In Australia, businessman Geoffrey Cumming has spent $170 million to fund a research center led by infectious disease specialist Sharon Lewin.
His team will work on technologies that could serve as the basis for rapidly adaptable therapies against new pathogens. Model to emulate: Messenger RNA vaccines against Covid. The center will be “operational” within six months, Professor Lewin told AFP.
The goal here is to know how to react urgently to an unknown pathogen. However, anticipation also includes the identification of known risks.
The WHO is therefore working on updating a list of risk germs. Particularly observable: other corona viruses and of course the flu virus, but also Ebola and Zika.
“In each of these viruses, just a few mutations could increase their spread,” warns American University Brown epidemiologist Jennifer Nuzzo.
Other pathogens are under observation, such as arenaviruses, paramysoviruses – the family of measles and mumps – or the Marburg virus.
– “Many crises” –
Are these research efforts sufficient? Above all, many experts and activists fear a lack of political will. Which translates into the issue of funding. For example, the CEPI organization (co-founded by several states and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to fight epidemics) is seeking $800 million to complete a five-year plan.
Policymakers should not forget the pandemic issue even as they “focus on the many current crises” in a difficult geopolitical and economic context, Richard Hatchett, head of CEPI, told AFP.
And how can we ensure that all countries, including the poorest, have access to a vaccine or treatment? “For me, the tragedy of Covid will have been the uneven distribution of vaccines, even once they were available,” says the epidemiologist.
Experts polled by AFP agree. It will be impossible to respond well to the next pandemic if large regions such as Africa, South America, South Asia or the Middle East do not have access to treatments, especially by manufacturing them themselves.
For many activists, planning to have the patents on possible therapies lifted would be of great importance. However, given the opposition from the pharmaceutical industry and a large part of the developed world, the idea seems unrealistic.
And little development is to be expected: the tone of these countries in the context of the current discussions at the WHO is “extremely worrying”, estimates Mohga Kamal-Yanni, representative of the NGO People’s Vaccine Alliance.