UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, has alarmed that infectious diseases portends a danger to every country, saying the trend is posing threat to the health systems and endangering humanity.
Guterres, in his message to mark the International Day of Epidemic Preparedness, lamented that COVID-19 has continued to demonstrate how quickly an infectious disease can sweep across the world.
“It also revealed our failure to learn the lessons of recent health emergencies like SARS, avian influenza, Zika, Ebola and others. And it reminded us that the world remains woefully unprepared to stop localized outbreaks from spilling across borders, and spiraling into a global pandemic,” the UN chief said.
While noting that infectious diseases remain “a clear and present danger to every country”, Guterres maintained that COVID-19 would not be the last pandemic for humanity.
Despite that the world responds to the ravaging health crisis, Guterres spelt out the need to prepare for the next one.
“This means scaling-up investments in better monitoring, early detection and rapid response plans in every country — especially the most vulnerable,” he maintained.
The envoy restated: “It means strengthening primary health care at the local level to prevent collapse… ensuring equitable access to lifesaving interventions, like vaccines for all people and…achieving Universal Health Coverage.”
The Secretary-General upheld that by building global solidarity, every country would have a fighting chance “to stop infectious diseases in their tracks”.
Earlier in December, the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Ghebreyesus, accepted the decision of a special session of the World Health Assembly to develop a new global accord on pandemic prevention and response.
While acknowledging a long road ahead, he described the decision as “cause for celebration, and cause for hope”.
The WHO Chief noted: “There are still differences of opinion about what a new accord could or should contain,” adding that the consensus has proven that “differences can be overcome and common ground can be found”.
Meanwhile, as cases of the new Omicron variant continue to spread like wildfire, 70 per cent of COVID vaccines have been distributed to the world’s 10 largest economies.
In contrary, the poorest countries according to the Un have received just 0.8 per cent, declaring that this was “not only unjust” but also a threat to the entire planet.
In order to end the imbalance, the Organization underscored that at least, 70 per cent of the population in every country must be inoculated, which the UN vaccine strategy aims to achieve by mid-2022.
Although this will require at least 11 billion vaccine doses, asserting that it is doable, so long as sufficient resources are put into distribution.
“An outbreak anywhere is a potential pandemic everywhere. On this International Day of Epidemic Preparedness, let’s give this issue the focus, attention and investment it deserves,” the Secretary-General said.
The International Day of Epidemic Preparedness is marked on December 27 of every year. It is to advocate the importance of the prevention of, preparedness for and partnership against epidemics.
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