Pandemic preparedness collaboration among private businesses with the public sector is critically important at this time, say experts at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, the World Economic Forum, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
“The next severe pandemic will not only cause great illness and loss of life but could also trigger major cascading economic and societal consequences that could contribute greatly to global impact and suffering,” the three organizations said in a joint statement released on Jan. 17.
“Efforts to prevent such consequences or respond to them as they unfold will require unprecedented levels of collaboration between governments, international organizations, and the private sector,” said the organizations.
The world is experiencing increased numbers of epidemic events — roughly 200 annually since 2011, according to the World Economic Forum, which works to manage risks associated with emerging infectious diseases that could cause an epidemic or pandemic.
The trend is expected to intensify due to increasing global trade, travel, population density, human displacement, deforestation and climate change, the forum said in a January 2019 white paper.
“Further, the number and diversity of epidemic events (e.g. influenza, Ebola, Zika, yellow fever, SARS, MERS-CoV and antibiotic-resistant bacteria, among other threats) have been increasing over the past 30 years,” according to the white paper.
Consequently, the World Economic Forum predicts that a cataclysmic pandemic would disrupt health, economies and society, and could cause an average annual economic loss of 0.7 percent of global GDP — or $570 billion.
Last week, the World Economic Forum joined with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the John Hopkins Center for Health Security to release a Call to Action document that proposes seven recommendations toward improving responses to such pandemics.
Their recommendations were culled from a high-level pandemic exercise entitled Event 201, which the organizations jointly sponsored in October 2019 in New York City. The 3.5-hour multimedia pandemic simulation involved 16 leaders of global businesses, governments and public health and highlighted the areas where public-private partnerships will be necessary during the response to a pandemic to curtail large-scale economic and societal consequences, according to the organizations.
The organizations jointly propose:
1. Businesses, governments and international organizations should plan now for how essential corporate capabilities will be used during a large-scale pandemic, which could overwhelm public-sector efforts to control it. “But industry assets, if swiftly and appropriately deployed, could help to save lives and reduce economic losses. Companies with operations focused on logistics or social media, for example, could help support governments’ emergency responses, risk communications and medical countermeasures (MCMs) distribution efforts during such an event.
2. Industry, national governments and international organizations must team up to bolster internationally held stockpiles of MCMs to ensure they can be rapidly and equitably distributed. “During a catastrophic outbreak, countries may be reluctant to part with scarce medical resources. A robust international stockpile could therefore help to ensure that low and middle resource settings receive needed supplies regardless of whether they produce such supplies domestically.” Countries having national supplies or domestic manufacturing capabilities also should commit to donating some of that supply and/or product to a virtual stockpile, for instance, that could be supported by additional funding from teams comprised of international groups and pharmaceutical companies.
3. Global transportation companies, countries and international organizations should work together to maintain travel and trade during severe pandemics. For example, Ministries of Health and other government agencies should immediately cooperate with international airlines and global shipping companies to develop realistic response scenarios and to start contingency planning processes with the goal of mitigating economic damage by maintaining key travel and trade routes during a large-scale pandemic.
4. Governments must provide more resources and support for the development and surge manufacturing of critically needed vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics. During a pandemic event, countries will need population-level supplies of safe and effective MCMs. Therefore, they must have the ability to rapidly develop, manufacture, distribute, and dispense large quantities of MCMs “to contain and control a global outbreak. Countries with enough resources should greatly increase this capability.”
5. Global businesses should recognize the economic burden of pandemics and advocate for stronger preparedness. “Globally, there has been a lack of attention and investment in preparing for high-impact pandemics, and business is largely not involved in existing efforts,” the three organizations say. “To a significant extent this is due to a lack of awareness of the business risks posed by a pandemic.” Business leaders and their shareholders should invest more in preparing their own companies and industries, and “actively engage with governments and advocate for increased resources for pandemic preparedness.”
6. International organizations must prioritize reducing the economic impacts of epidemics and pandemics. An increase in and reassessment of pandemic financial support will be needed in a catastrophic pandemic as many sectors of society could need financial support during or after the event, including healthcare institutions, essential businesses and national governments. For instance, “critical nodes” of the banking system and global and national economies that are too essential to fail should be identified; some also may need emergency international financial support, as well.
7. The private sector and governments should assign a greater priority to developing methods to combat mis- and disinformation prior to the next pandemic response. Governments should partner with social media companies to research and develop approaches to countering misinformation, such as developing capabilities to flood media with fast, accurate and consistent information. For example, “public health authorities should work with private employers and trusted community leaders such as faith leaders, to promulgate factual information to employees and citizens.”
The three organizations concluded that if their recommendations “are robustly pursued,” then substantial progress could be made to decrease the potential impact and consequences of large-scale, intense pandemics.
“We call on leaders in global business, international organizations, and national governments to launch an ambitious effort to work together to build a world better prepared for a severe pandemic,” the groups said.