The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) is urging the importance of preparedness when it comes to biomedical research in the face of major disease outbreaks and pandemics.
In an article published in The Journal of the American Medical Association by Anthony Fauci, director of the NIAID, and his colleagues, NIAID has argued for three simultaneous approaches to pandemic preparedness: pathogen-specific, platform-based, and prototype-pathogen. The danger of not doing so, the institute noted, is that while each of these approaches has their merits, each also has their severe drawbacks if solely relied upon.
For instance, under pathogen-specific research, researchers prioritize their efforts on known dangerous diseases like Ebola. They prepare ahead of time and ready supplies with easily and rapidly deployable countermeasures to keep the disease contained. However, it takes for granted the fact that experts may not always be able to correctly identify future threats. Further, one cannot prepare for things that are unexpected or new.
Platform-based approaches, on the other hand, see researchers focused on developing adaptable techniques that will allow protection against specific diseases. The prototype pathogen method actually builds on this, using those methods to create vaccines for categories or families of pathogens studied ahead of time. When a specific type of outbreak occurs, the vaccines can then be specialized for that disease.
Where both of these methods falter is that there is no guarantee they will yield a fully-developed vaccine or treatment. They, therefore, represent slower responses than pathogen-specific approaches allow, even if they are able to adapt and hit a wider array.
Specifics are as important as adaptation, according to the paper. All three must be pursued in tandem if true preparation is to be maintained.