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While the terrible Ebola outbreak killed 11,300 people and cost billions of dollars, the work laid the foundation for ensuring that an epidemic never reached again this level of threat to global health security
. It was to identify which diseases presented the highest risk of causing a generalized public health emergency and to avoid countermeasures to prevent their spread in order to catalyze funding for their prevention. Three years later, six of the eight disease categories highlighted in the WHO list were in the midst of outbreaks – at the same time.
They include the worst of the worst: Ebola. MERS. Zika. Nipah virus. Lbada fever. The fever of the Rift Valley. Until now, outbreaks of these diseases and pathogens with high mortality this year have caused at least and cost millions. But all these diseases have the potential to strike again and develop, causing an epidemic that could kill thousands of people, devastate the global economy and wreak havoc – and all six were in a state of outbreak. June. According to Dr. Mike Ryan, Deputy Director General of the WHO for Emergency Preparedness and Response, it is unprecedented since he was 25 years old on the front lines of these outbreaks [19659002"Therearetheseeventsofblackswansthatcouldhappen-thedutytoprepareforthem-becauseoureconomiesandourcivilizationsnowdependsomuchonthefreemovementofpeopleandthiscapacityfortrade"hesaidtoHuffPost"Soallthatstopsisamajorthreat"
The world will typically see four to five highly fatal disease outbreaks a year – but they do not usually occur at the same time at that number, according to Ryan, who believes that it is probably the first time that it happens.He added that it was, in a sense, a "test of resistance "to the outbreak response
" & # 39; one of these things goes down – especially more than one at the same time – so I think we will be in a hurry. Loyce Pace, the president and executive director of the Global Health Council, an organization that advocates for global health priorities, told HuffPost
and although this year's outbreaks have been relatively contained, experts fear that the lack of investment in research and development, as risk factors increase, could lead to an outbreak that they can not stop. This not only threatens lives, it could also threaten global security and stability – after all, outbreaks have no respect for borders.
An Increase in Risk Factors
Part of the reason we know of the epidemics is due to positive developments: health systems around the world have improved, which means that more people have access to medical care than ever before. And more and more institutions, such as the WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among others, monitor outbreaks and maintain better records of threats.
Even Congress asks for more regular updates. Ami Bera (D-Calif.), The vice-member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, who has already advertised previous Ebola fights, made a presentation alongside the Democratic representatives: Gerry Connolly (Va. ), Rick Larsen (Washington) and John Garamendi (California) to the bill on the authorization of intelligence. The amendment, pbaded unanimously in the House on Thursday, requires the director of national intelligence to inform Congress of the anticipated effects of emerging infectious diseases and pandemics, helping them to better understand the magnitude of the threat when they make budgetary decisions
. "Preventing the spread of the disease is an essential part of our national security and Congress needs to make it a priority," Bera told HuffPost in a statement. "We saw an improvement over what we were, but we still have work to do."
We do not know when the next Ebola outbreak will arrive, but we know it will come back, and again and again. Dr. Thomas Inglesby, Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
But, ultimately, an increase in awareness does not fully account for the increase in these epidemic events, experts say. Several major factors are to blame for why the world sees more of these pathogens becoming more dangerous. The combination of mbadive widespread urbanization, explosive population growth, increased global travel, changing ecological factors, constant climate change and exploitation environments leads to an era of convergence of outbreak risks. the bugs – it's the humans, "Ryan told HuffPost. "What has changed is our relationship with these viruses, our relationship with tropical forests."
People – and more of them – live much closer together, which increases the risk of hatching in a mbadive urban center. Traveling the world makes spreading something like that easier than ever. And the changing environment – from different exposure to parts of the world, a general disregard for habitat and ongoing climate change – means that humans are seeing things that they do not have. Have never met before, in areas that have never seen them before.
a look at sub-Saharan Africa, said Dr. Richard Hatchett, CEO of CEPI, the Coalition for Innovations in Epidemic Preparedness. This is the largest ever observed, and then you throw one into the Democratic Republic of Congo – this is not trivial, he said, stressing the need for heightened vigilance.
"These diseases can move and they can arise – and if they find the right environment, they have the potential to explode," he said. "If you think that diseases conveniently find places to emerge and spread, it's pretty scary. "
And this kind of epidemic situation is not only threatening people in the epicenter of the epidemic – it has the potential to shake "We do not only know individual lives but, as we have already seen, a crisis like pandemic flu, SARS or Ebola can devastate health systems and economies whole, curb future development and even lead to political crises.Instability, "said Rebecca Hoff, director of the CDC's Center for Global Health, in HuffPost, she pointed out the 800 killed by SARS in 2003 and its price of 40 billion dollars.The cost of the next pand
"Gaps in public health emergency response capabilities remain a serious vulnerability for the world." "While we do not know when and where the next pandemic will occur, we know that it is happening."
A need for more R & D
Mbadive global tactical resources and an experimental vaccine were mobilized to quell the Ebola epidemic, which in the DRC. The outbreak is expected to be declared soon, ending with a total of 29 deaths. A record number of 3,330 people have been vaccinated, the WHO told HuffPost, and global health organizations have made more than 20,000 follow-up visits to limit the spread of diseases – and therefore deaths – [19659002] such epidemics and prevent them from gaining importance at the regional, national and international levels – and are not isolated to Ebola.
For example, in their homes in the state of Kerala south of India during the Nipah virus outbreak. In Nigeria, Lbada fever levels are "," Kenya is fighting the scary fever of the Rift Valley who are alleged hosts, and Saudi Arabia has found SEIs – two of which are in health centers .
And then there is the Zika
Its prevalent infection rates around the world in places where the virus had never been seen was essentially a substitute for "X disease", the unknown emerging pathogen that is the eighth category of diseases on the list, Hatchett. Disease X often concerns epidemic experts, because the logistics of preparing and fighting an unknown pathogen are terrifying. So, when Zika exploded in 2016, even though we had seen it before, it had never been so prevalent – making it similar to the dreaded problem of X disease.
So now, even two years and a half later, Hatchett says, "If you had a virus that spreads like the flu, which could spread all over the world in 60 days, two and a half years ago, way too long before you were vaccinated."
Although we do not know when and where the next pandemic will occur, we know that there will be one that will happen. Rebecca Martin, Director of CDC's Center for Global Health
Efforts have been made to develop vaccines against these diseases – before the world desperately needs them. For example, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness or CEPI, in 2017 by a consortium of institutions including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, the World Economic Forum and the governments of Norway and Japan, seeks to create vaccines for Lbada. , Nipah and MERS based on the WHO priority list. Other efforts include the experimental Ebola vaccine developed by Merck, as well as some of these drugs.
The creation of a global organization like CEPI is essential because, as Hatchett says, there is no commercial demand for these diseases. their. In other words, expensive drug development funding for, typically, poor people in poor countries is not profitable.
Failure to develop drugs that combat these rare, but potentially disastrous, epidemics means that when the world really needs them, they will be years behind. It would cost to bring vaccines and treatments to the market for all 10 known diseases on the list, according to CEPI calculations. He begins to point to MERS, Nipah and Lbada.
Yet public health experts often cite the panic cycle of epidemic and public health financing, which is based on these epidemics. And the R & D to fight them is not different.
"The problem with public health in particular and with R & D is what we try to do to prevent bad things," said Dr. Thomas Inglesby, director of Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told HuffPost. "When you succeed, it's relatively invisible – so the public does not understand why investment is so important."
While the need for R & D is greater than ever, Inglesby says that he was encouraged by how much higher the risk of a pandemic in mind is these days. He pointed out that better global badessments by the WHO and an increase in the threat indices of the epidemic were steps in the right direction. "I think these diseases are part of the global threat landscape," Inglesby said. "They are doing damage and they are provoking epidemics and appearing again.We do not know when the next Ebola outbreak will come, but we know it will come back, and again and again."
And when that is the case – the disease sees no boundaries.
"We know that an epidemic that begins in a remote village can reach big cities on every continent, including here in the United States, in 36 hours," Martin said of the CDC. "In the interconnected world of today, a threat to health everywhere is a threat everywhere."
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