What Can Be Done to Avoid Future Pandemics Like COVID-19

2. More funding for vaccine programs is needed

It’s true that we don’t have a COVID-19 vaccine yet, but many large-scale vaccination programs all over the world are working at minimizing the rates of the disease. Also, they focus on ensuring that health systems don’t get overwhelmed with patients with preventable diseases.

That has proven very helpful especially if we’re talking about emerging epidemics, the main focus is still inclined towards understanding and containing new diseases. A good example would be the eradication of polio by 99%, showing how proper vaccinations can help the spread of the virus.

According to what Oliver Rosenbauer, a communications officer for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), told Global Citizen, one of the most efficient and cost-effective health inventions of all time are vaccines, no matter how you look at them, either from an economic or humanitarian point of view.

“Large-scale administration of polio vaccines … has reduced the incidence of this disease from more than 350,000 all over the world when this program launched in 1985, to just under 200 wild polio cases from just two countries last year,” he continued saying.

As I previously mentioned, a good example would be the effort against polio, showing how strengthening a response in one area can improve health systems in wider contexts as well.

Researchers working with GPEI to eliminate polio all over the world played a very important role in approaching the massive Ebola outbreak that hit West Africa in 2014. For instance, officers from Nigeria’s national polio Emergency Operations Center (EOC) organized the Ebola EOC as a response to the disease. Additionally, many other methods from polio eradication including surveillance and investigation have been imitated to help the spread of the virus.

Make sure to also read Coronavirus: The Lessons We Should Learn from Ebola.

The Vaccine Alliance, Gavi also played an important part in improving health systems in low-income areas of the world by delivering vaccines. Gavi has vaccinated more than 760 million children all over the world since the program was launched in 2000, preventing more than 13 million deaths.

However, more funds are needed to achieve even more. By 2025, the alliance is aiming to vaccinate 1.1 billion children all across the world.

Humans Are Hard-Wired to Ignore Coronavirus Evidence That Doesn’t Fit Their Worldview. Find out more HERE.