Pandemic (un)preparedness

A report found that no country was truly prepared for coronavirus

MOST countries were not prepared for a globally catastrophic biological event when Covid-19 emerged last year, according to the Global Health Security (GHS) Index.

The Index was put together by the Nuclear Threat Initiative and the Center for Health Security, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and was published in October 2019.

It was the first comprehensive effort to assess health security and capabilities of 195 countries across the world, looking at how they would deal with biological threats including pandemics.

It assessed each country in six categories - Prevention, Detection and Reporting, Rapid Response, Health System, Compliance with Global Norms, and Risk Environment.

The report found that fewer than 7% of countries scored top marks for Prevention, with only 13 countries receiving high scores for their ability to prevent the emergence or release of pathogens.

The UK was among them, ranking first across EU countries and 10th globally.

It also saw high marks when it came to Detection and Reporting, along with 36 other countries although only 19% of countries scored highly for early detection and reporting for epidemics of potential international concern.

The UK received the top score in the world for Rapid Response, which measured the ability of a country to rapidly respond to and mitigate the spread of an epidemic.

It was one of just nine countries to perform well in this category - 5% of the 195 nations surveyed.

However, the UK was not considered to be one of the most prepared when it came to its Health System, ranking at number 11 globally.

Just four countries got high scores when it came to having a health system that was sufficient and robust enough to treat the sick and protect health workers.

It did come in second place for Compliance with Global Norms though, behind the United States.

There were 14 other countries that scored highly in this category, which looked at things like signing up to cross-border agreements on public health emergency response and commitments to data sharing.

And while the UK did get a high score for Risk Environment, it only ranked in 26th place in terms of the most prepared.

Around 23% of countries scored in the top tier for this category, looking at other things that might impact responses to pandemics such as public health vulnerabilities, the adequacy of infrastructure, and environmental, political and security risks.

Despite the UK scoring well in most of the categories - coming in second place for overall preparedness, after the US - the report found that no country was fully prepared for epidemics or pandemics, and every country had important gaps to address.

It also emphasised that although every country has a responsibility to understand, track, improve, and sustain national health security, new and increased global biological risks may require approaches that are beyond the control of individual governments and will necessitate international action.

International preparedness was weak when the report was published in October, and many countries did not show evidence of the health security capacities and capabilities that are needed to deal with significant infectious disease outbreaks such as Covid-19.