Now is the time to prepare for a pathogen more deadly and infectious than Covid-19
In a world that feels increasingly post-pandemic, the reality is that another pathogen more deadly and infectious than Sars-CoV-2 could arise at any time. To break a historic cycle of “” in health security, the time to bolster our ability to detect and respond to such biological threats is now.
Surveillance of emerging biological threats and the implementation of early response capacities are priorities of the , a multilateral initiative focused on global preparedness for pandemics and biological attacks. It is of immediate importance to sustain and grow investments that will generate and maintain the technical and laboratory infrastructure necessary for rapid detection and response to biological threats before they pose a widespread risk to the public.
While funding for surveillance and early-response measures was lacking at the onset of the Covid pandemic, decades of progress in biotechnology and the helped compensate for early shortcomings of the global response, demonstrating the importance of investment in preventive infrastructure. Equitable distribution of resources is imperative to global health security as underinvestment in any one country has the potential to lead to the endemic spread of disease, which places a significant burden on the affected country while also increasing the risk to the international community.