- World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that there will be more pandemics in the future during a video shared on Sunday’s first International Epidemic Preparedness Day.
- Tedros said the world had failed to “prepare” for the COVID-19 pandemic and, in the future, countries should work to “prevent, detect and mitigate emergencies of all kinds, whether they are naturally occurring epidemics or deliberate events”.
- He said that investments in public health and “the whole government, the whole society, a health approach” can help countries to successfully prepare for future pandemics.
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The Director General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned that COVID-19 will not be the last pandemic in the world, while speaking in a video statement on the first International Day of Preparedness for Epidemics on Sunday.
Tedros used his message encourage countries to prepare themselves better, working to “prevent, detect and mitigate emergencies of all types, whether they occur naturally occurring epidemics or deliberate events”.
“History tells us that yours will not be the last pandemic and epidemics are a fact of life,” he said.
He said that investments in public health and a “health approach for the whole government, the whole society, one” can help countries to successfully respond to global health crises in the future.
“If we don’t prepare, we are preparing to fail. … Last year, the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board published its first report, which concluded that the world remains dangerously unprepared for a global pandemic,” he said in the video.
Nearly 1.8 million people worldwide have died of COVID-19 since the pandemic began, and more than 80 million people have tested positive for the virus.
In the United States alone, more than 332,000 people died of the virus and more than 19 million tested positive, according to Johns Hopkins.
COVID-19 vaccines are currently being administered to healthcare professionals and are expected to be administered to the general public in 2021.