Health experts speak on planning for global pandemics

At a recent gathering of students, academics, and government officials at Georgetown University, a group of world health experts spoke on the need for the incoming Trump Administration to plan for an inevitable pandemic.

The event was organized by the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University Medical Center in conjunction with the Harvard Global Health Institute.

“If there’s one message that I want to leave with you today based on my experience, it is that there is no question that there will be a challenge to the coming administration in the arena of infectious diseases,” said Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

Fauci has worked with five presidents who all faced pandemics early in their presidencies.

Fauci noted his department’s struggles with securing funding from Congress for initiatives to stop the spread of the Zika virus.

“We need [a public health emergency fund] because of what we had to go through for Zika. It was very, very painful when the president asked for the $1.9 billion in February and we didn’t get it until September. That was a very painful process.”

Zika virus is typically spread through the bite of Aedes species mosquito and usually produces only mild symptoms, however, it has been linked to severe fetus malformations in pregnant women. The virus was cited as a potential pandemic threat if not responded to appropriately.

“It’s hard to think of a more important time for this kind of meeting and for activism and a willingness to speak out in the public health community and the global health community than it is right now on the eve of Donald Trump becoming our next president,”  said Ronald Klain, general counsel for Revolution LLC and the Obama administration’s former Ebola “czar.”