How to stay ready for future pandemics Premium

Health Matters Newsletter: How to stay ready for future pandemics

It’s time to address the elephant in the room: for a few weeks now, that elephant has been COVID-19. For some time now, the number of confirmed COVID cases have been rising in certain parts of the world, particularly in South East Asia. Meanwhile, India which had very nearly stopped routine testing for suspected COVID infections also picked up the cue, and began testing for the condition. A slow, and gradual increase was noticed, over the weeks. Bindu Shajan Perappadan recorded that the Active Covid cases in India had climbed to 1009 this week. About 305 people had been treated, and there were seven deaths last week. 

What followed the news on rise in cases in South east asia was a great deal of panic reporting by sections of the media. Every case has been breathlessly reported, while forgetting that for a country with a 1.2 billion people, the current number of cases is hardly even a blip on the radar. Of course, the price of having gone through one ghastly pandemic is eternal vigilance, and we have learnt that the hard way. There is no doubt that testing has to be scaled up, vaccines and boosters should be made available again to all those who require it, and hospitals need to gear up in order to face a large scale crisis if one were to emerge in the future. 

Do read Saima Wazed’s important piece, in this context: A medical oxygen access gap SE Asia must bridge. South Asia and East Asia and the Pacific have the highest unfulfilled demand for medical oxygen (the oxygen service coverage gap in these two regions is 78% and 74% respectively), and there is a clear and urgent need for action to rectify this.

But, and this is key: there is not yet a COVID crisis in the country. Numbers still continue to be in the 100s range and most people seem to recover without major, notable complications. INSACOG has reported that most of the Sar-CoV-2 samples sequenced in India over the last couple of weeks were BA.2 and JN.1 variants, milder variants with home care sufficient for those who test positive. Officials in the Health Ministry also confirmed that there was no indication that the current variants cause more severe disease, but also that it was not more tranmissible than previously. However, as we learnt the last time, it is important to take care of people who are more vulnerable, have a robust surveillance network for picking up influenza like illnesses, and respiratory conditions.

For an explainer on What’s behind the recent Covid-19 spike in India?, hit the link. 

Amidst all this, that the WHO members adopted the ‘pandemic agreement’ born out of disjointed global COVID response came as good news. In short, the World Health Organization’s member countries on approved an agreement to better prevent, prepare for and respond to future pandemics in the wake of the devastation wrought by the coronavirus.

The treaty guarantees that countries which share virus samples will receive tests, medicines and vaccines. Up to 20 % of such products would be given to the WHO to ensure poorer countries have some access to them when the next pandemic hits. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has touted the agreement as “historic” and a sign of multilateralism at a time when many countries are putting national interests ahead of shared values and cooperation.