Millions could die as world unprepared for pandemics, says UN – ‘A virulent strain of an airborne influenza virus could kill more than 33 million people within 250 days’

Desdemona Despair

By Sarah Boseley
8 February 2016

(Guardian) – A global epidemic far worse than the Ebola outbreak is a real possibility and could kill many millions if the world does not become better prepared to deal with the sudden emergence and transmission of disease, the UN has said in a hard-hitting report.

The report has emerged in draft form, as experts rally to deal with the rapid spread of the Zika virus across Latin America, which has been linked to thousands of cases of brain damage in babies.

Countries in the region have again been caught off-guard because of the lack of scientific knowledge about the virus and the absence of good data on microcephaly, a condition in which babies’ heads fail to grow properly in the womb.

The report comes from the high-level panel on the global response to health crises, set up by the UN secretary general in April 2015, as the Ebola epidemic that killed more than 11,000 people finally waned. Several other inquiries into what occurred, and the slow and inadequate response by the World Health Organisation (WHO), have reported and fed into the UN panel’s conclusions.

“The high risk of major health crises is widely underestimated, and … the world’s preparedness and capacity to respond is woefully insufficient. Future epidemics could far exceed the scale and devastation of the west Africa Ebola outbreak,” says the panel’s chair, Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete from Tanzania, outlining their findings in the preface.

“Too often, global panic about epidemics has been followed by complacency and inaction. For example, the 2009 influenza pandemic prompted a similar review of global preparedness, but most of its recommendations were not addressed. Had they been implemented, thousands of lives could have been saved in west Africa. We owe it to the victims to prevent a recurrence of this tragedy.”

The report, which has been posted online in advanced, unedited form in the UN’s Daily Journal, is not just about the mishandling of Ebola, but about the crucial need for the world to put in place systems to detect and fight new disease threats.

“Notwithstanding its devastating impact in west Africa, the Ebola virus is not the most virulent pathogen known to humanity,” says the report. “Mathematical modelling by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has shown that a virulent strain of an airborne influenza virus could spread to all major global capitals within 60 days and kill more than 33 million people within 250 days.” [more]

Millions could die as world unprepared for pandemics, says UN