Pandemic Preparedness Are We Ready for the Next Global Health Crisis?
The world is struggling to control infectious diseases that should be manageable. Measles once near extinction has made a deadly return in Europe and the U.S. due to falling vaccination rates. Bird flu has spread across dairy herds in 17 U.S. states and has even been detected in cats, raising concerns about potential human transmission. Meanwhile polio almost eradicated has resurfaced in Gaza and New York.
COVID-19 still claims between 500 and 1,000 lives each week globally. This winter hospitals in developed nations faced surges in flu, RSV, and COVID, exposing weaknesses in healthcare systems. Despite lessons from past outbreaks global responses remain slow, fragmented and politically charged.
Over the past 60 years, four pandemics have swept the globe each revealing systemic failu...