WHO Urges Countries to Prepare for Future Pandemics
By Ahmed Rahma
The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Mr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has warned that COVID-19 won’t be the world’s last pandemic.
The WHO boss said this on the first International Day of Epidemic Preparedness held on Sunday, encouraging countries to prepare better by working to prevent, detect and mitigate emergencies of all kinds.
According to him, “History tells us this will not be the last pandemic and epidemics are a fact of life.”
He further said “investments in public health and an all-of-government, all-of-society, one health approach could help countries successfully react to global health crises in the future.”
“If we fail to prepare, we are preparing to fail.
“Last year, the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board published its first report, which concluded, the world remains dangerously unprepared for a global pandemic,” he added.
According to an American entrepreneur, Johns Hopkins, Nearly 1.8 million people across the world have died from COVID-19 since the pandemic began and more than 80 million people have tested positive for the virus.
In the United States alone, more than 332,000 people have died from the virus and more than 19 million have tested positive.
As stated by United Nations (UN), it is important to strengthen epidemic prevention by applying lessons learned on epidemic management and how to prevent the stoppage of basic services, and to raise the level of preparedness in order to have the earliest and most adequate response to any epidemic that may arise, and recognizing also the value of an integrated One Health approach that fosters the integration of human health, animal health and plant health, as well as environmental and other relevant sectors.
