RE:Testing.....Long way to go And testing will be needed for the next virus.
COVID-19 will not be the world’s last health emergency and there is an urgent need for sustainable health emergency preparedness to deal with the next one.
This was the strong sentiment shared by participants of the United Nations General Assembly side-event on ‘Sustainable preparedness for health security and resilience: Adopting a whole-of-society approach and breaking the “panic-then-forget” cycle’. The high-level virtual event was co-hosted by Finland, France and Indonesia, along with the World Health Organization (WHO).
Past crises have shown that once an outbreak is under control, governments and donors tend to turn their attention to other pressing concerns. This cycle of “panic-then-forget” has prevented the development of effective health emergency preparedness across the globe. The world needs to break this cycle once and for all.
This week, the world crossed a grim milestone with over a million lives lost to the COVID-19 pandemic, and many more expected to have died from unprecedented disruptions to the health systems.
“Over the years we have had many reports, reviews and recommendations all saying the same thing: the world is not prepared for a pandemic. COVID-19 has laid bare the truth: when the time came, the world was still not ready,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, in his opening address. He called for investing in preparedness, with an all-of-government and all-of-society approach. “This will not be the last pandemic, nor the last global health emergency. But with the right political and financial investments now, we can advance health security, prevent and mitigate future pandemics, and protect our future and the future of generations to come,” he said.
Countries spoke of their commitment to health emergency preparedness. “We know that preparedness makes economic sense, and we have developed tools and models for multi-sectoral cooperation. Learning from the pandemic and building on the previous progress should guide our steps to strengthen Health Security and thus help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals,” said Pivi Sillanaukee, Ambassador for Health and Wellbeing, Republic of Finland.
“There is an urgent need to leverage the response to COVID-19 to build, maintain and strengthen sustainable public health capacities for emergency preparedness […] France firmly believes that preparedness deserves to be placed much higher on the foreign policy agenda and we are willing to foster cooperation among Member States to ensure the continued visibility of this topic, whether here in Geneva or at the UNGA in New York,” said Stphanie Seydoux, Ambassador for Global Health, French Republic.
Health emergency preparedness is part of the larger vision of health for all. In her speech, Indonesian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Retno L.P. Marsudi, reminded participants that “the investment we must make at the national level now is ensuring affordable health care for all. Let us ask ourselves, how many times have we heard of people denying themselves of much needed medical health care due to costs.... The issue of affordable health care for all is at the heart of Indonesia’s chairmanship of the Foreign Policy and Global Health initiative.”