A new GPMB report warns the world is not ready for the next pandemic as public health funding, trust and equitable access to vaccines and tests falter.
The world is not ready for the next pandemic, a global preparedness watchdog warned Monday, citing government funding cutbacks, declining trust in public health authorities and widening gaps in access to vaccines, tests and treatments.
The Global Preparedness Monitoring Board said the warning comes as infectious disease outbreaks are becoming more frequent and more disruptive, with health, economic, political and social consequences that can outpace countries’ ability to recover.
“Everyone who has the responsibility for the well-being and the development of their people should be concerned because we definitely are not ready for the next pandemic,” GPMB co-chair Joy Phumaphi told CBC News.
The report says investment has not kept pace with rising pandemic risk. On several of the measures that shaped the global COVID-19 response — including equitable access to diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics — the board says the world is moving in the wrong direction.
The warning lands amid renewed public attention to infectious disease response after a hantavirus outbreak linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship. The World Health Organization reported 11 confirmed and probable cases as of last week, including three deaths. U.S. officials said 41 people in the United States were being monitored, with no confirmed U.S. cases at the time of the CNBC report.
Health experts have stressed that the outbreak is not a repeat of COVID-19. The Andes strain of hantavirus involved in the outbreak can spread between people, but experts said it generally requires close and prolonged contact and does not move efficiently through the air like COVID-19, flu or measles. Because hantavirus can have an incubation period of one to six weeks, more cases could still appear among exposed people.
Even so, the outbreak has become a test case for broader concerns about preparedness. Public health experts cited by CBC and CNBC pointed to U.S. cuts affecting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reductions in global health and vaccine-related funding, and the Trump administration’s move to withdraw from the World Health Organization as risks that could weaken coordination during a faster-moving threat.
Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown University public health law professor, told CNBC he did not expect significant risk to the American public from the current hantavirus outbreak. But he added: “If this is a stress test, we failed this.”
The GPMB report also points to a social problem that pandemic planning alone cannot solve: public distrust. Experts cited misinformation, polarization and attacks on scientific institutions as forces that can blunt public health measures even when tools such as vaccines or tests are available.
Canada may be better positioned in some areas than it was at the start of COVID-19, according to experts cited by CBC. The Public Health Agency of Canada has taken steps since then on surveillance, stockpile planning, genomic sequencing and emergency coordination, while governments have gained experience with mass vaccination, intensive-care surges, border measures and public communication.
But the same experts cautioned that vulnerabilities remain, including decision-making that can be slower than the pace of a new outbreak and broader social resistance to proven public health measures. CBC noted that Canada lost its measles elimination status late last year, a development experts tied to falling confidence in vaccination.
The GPMB’s recommendations focus on three areas: creating a permanent and independent system to monitor pandemic risk, ensuring equitable access to vaccines, tests and treatments through the WHO pandemic agreement, and establishing sustainable financing for prevention, preparedness and rapid “Day Zero” response.
For now, the immediate hantavirus risk remains limited, according to health experts. The larger question raised by the GPMB report is whether governments will restore funding, rebuild trust and strengthen international coordination before a more contagious pathogen tests the system again.
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