Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/GENEVA: All nations remain “dangerously unprepared” for the next pandemic, the Red Cross warned on Monday, saying future health crises could also collide with increasingly likely climate-related disasters.
Red Cross said that despite three “brutal” years of the Covid-19 pandemic, robust preparedness systems are “severely lacking,”
The world’s largest humanitarian network said that building trust, equity, and local action networks were vital to preparing for the next crisis.
Red Cross’s stance on the next pandemic
“All nations remain dangerously unprepared for future outbreaks,” the IFRC said, concluding that governments were no readier now than in 2019.
It said nations needed to be prepared for “multiple hazards, not just one,” saying societies only became truly resilient through planning for different types of disaster, as they can occur simultaneously.
The IFRC has cited the rise in climate-related disasters and waves of disease outbreaks this century, and the Covid was just one. It said that extreme weather events were growing more frequent and intense, “and our ability to merely respond to them is limited.”
The IFRC has issued two reports recommending mitigating future tragedies on the scale of covid on the third anniversary of the World Health Organization declaring the virus an international public health emergency.
IFRC secretary general Jagan Chapagain said that the covid pandemic should be a wake-up call for the global community to prepare for the following health crisis.
“The next pandemic would be just around the corner; if the experience of covid won’t quicken our steps toward preparedness, what will?” The report said that significant hazards harm those already vulnerable the most and leaving the poorest exposed was “self-defeating”, as a disease can return in a more dangerous form.
