Four years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, participants at the World Economic Forum discussed mechanisms to control and contain the next global pandemic.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus spoke to the WEF in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday about “Disease X,” the moniker for the hypothetical pathogen that could spark the next global pandemic.
“History has taught us that we must anticipate new threats,” Tedros said Wednesday. “Failing to prepare leaves the world prepared to fail.”
Experts have sounded the alarm since 2015 that the global public health infrastructure has been ill-prepared for large-scale events.
In February 2018, world leaders first discussed Disease X at the WEF meeting in Davos.
“As experience has taught us, more often than not, the thing that is going to hit us is something that we did not anticipate,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, then the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director, said in 2018 in response to questions about the first discussions of Disease X.
By 2020, Fauci became a household name as the face of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has taken nearly 1.2 million American lives.
At this week’s meeting, Tedros stressed the importance of increasing investment for preparedness across developing nations, bolstering local production of treatments and improved surveillance.
Tedros also said preparedness requires WHO member states to sign the Pandemic Accords, an international document that will strengthen the WHO’s capacity to deal with pandemics.
“The pandemic agreement can bring all the experience, all the challenges that we have faced, and all the solutions into one,” Tedros said.
American legislators have called for reforms to the WHO’s biosecurity reporting and oversight measures as a means of disease containment. Some, however, have expressed concern that an international agreement may supersede congressional authority if it does not follow treaty procedures.
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The Intergovernmental Negotiating Body, the WHO group responsible for drafting the agreement, is scheduled to meet in February and March before sending the final draft to member states for review.
“For our children and grandchildren’s sake, I think we have to convert all the lessons we have learned into this pandemic [agreement] and prepare the world for the future,” Tedros said.
