The world is no better prepared for a new pandemic threat than it was before Covid-19,than it was when the coronavirus emerged in 2019 and may actually be worse off given the economic impact, according to a group set up to assess the global response to the pandemic.
The lack of progress on reforms such as World Health Organization funding and international health regulations means the world is more vulnerable than ever, the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response said in its report.
The report's authors, led by former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and former Liberian President Helen Johnson Sirleaf, acknowledged some progress but said the process was moving too slowly.
"We now have exactly the same tools and the same system that existed in December 2019 to respond to the threat of a pandemic. And those tools are not good enough," Clark told reporters.
"If there was another pandemic threat this year, next year, or the year after that at least, we would be largely in the same place...maybe worse, given the tight fiscal space for many, if not most, countries right now."
Today's report from a body set up by the World Health Organization comes ahead of next week's World Health Assembly in Geneva, the annual WHO forum where decisions are made and where some of the issues raised are expected to be discussed.
While this body welcomed some steps forward, such as moves to create a separate global health security fund within the World Bank, it warned that interest internationally is waning and that the years it will take to establish other instruments are too long.
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