'$11.5b yearly funding required to prevent global pandemic'

• Published date: 11 January 2023
• Publication title: Nigeria - The Nation

The World Bank has advised countries to embrace preventive measures against the pandemic which are cheaper than curative measures.

The global bank estimates that prevention costs guided by a One Health approach - which would sustainably balance and optimise the health of people, animals, and ecosystems - would range from $10.3 billion to $11.5 billion yearly.

This, it said, was lower than the cost of managing pandemics which, according to the recent estimate by the G20 Joint Finance and Health Taskforce, amounts to about $30.1 billion yearly.

It said as the world continues to deal with the devastating effects of COVID-19, the World Bank is releasing a new report that proposes actionable solutions to end the cycle of devastating pandemics.

'The pace of emerging infectious disease (EID) outbreaks has increased at an average annual rate of 6.7 percent from 1980 onwards and the number of outbreaks has grown to several hundred per year since 2000. This is largely due to humans extending their global footprint, altering natural habitats, and accelerating the spillover of animal microbes into human populations,' the bank said in a report released yesterday.

It said 75 per cent of EIDs and almost all known pandemics result from increased contact between animals and people, causing more than one billion human infections and one million deaths yearly.

This, coupled with increasing movement of goods and people around the world, has demonstrated the ease of spread and volatility of EIDs.

The policymakers, governments, and the international community are urged to invest in pandemic prevention and to move away from the business-as-usual approach based on containment and control after a...