Have we learnt NOTHING from being caught off guard by Covid?
In a compelling dispatch from the Oxford lab behind coronavirus jab, scientists say they fear too little is being done to prepare for the next pandemic
(previously including Covid-19) locked away in a secure containment room requiring extra security clearance.
Across the hallway, in her small office with its box files, cycling helmet and waterproof hanging from a peg, Dame Sarah Gilbert is now working on vaccines for animal-borne viruses including Lassa fever virus (from rats) and Nipah virus (from bats) — and busy worrying about funding and application procedures.
Following the pandemic there are renewed anxieties about how this vital work will be financed and the laborious paperwork required to secure funding.
Researchers can apply for grants from institutions such as the Wellcome Trust — and the Government’s continued commitment to funding UK research is also ‘very welcome’, says Professor Gilbert.
But she adds: ‘The funding environment is increasingly challenging, especially as UK researchers [post Brexit] cannot currently access the EU’s Horizon Europe research and innovation funding programme, which has a budget of almost €100 billion. Many of us are nervous about the overall
PROFESSOR funding landscape.’
Gilbert continues: ‘ There are many other demands for government funding but it should be clear by now that investing in pandemic preparedness is far more cost-effective than dealing with a new pandemic.’
Professor Hill agrees: ‘ Covid was absolutely extraordinary — people were desperate to fund vaccines and fund them faster than ever before, which was fantastic. But that is not the case any more today.’
And despite the prestige of working at oxford University, both Professors Lambe and Professor Gilbert say it is hard to retain talented researchers.
‘You need to invest in your people — and let them know that the sacrifices they have made are appreciated,’ says Professor Lambe, who was employed on short to medium-term contracts herself for most of her career, and was only appointed to a full-time position last year. (The first time Dame Sarah had full job security, after a career spanning 36 years, including 28 at oxford, was when she was appointed to an endowed chair as Saïd Professor of Vaccinology two years ago.)
‘The work that went into delivering those clinical trials [for Covid] tested people — it was hard, really hard — and people sacrificed a lot to make it happen.
‘ Designing that vaccine one weekend, as Sarah and I did, was nothing compared with the energy and the passion and the sacrifice the whole team poured into getting those clinical trials done.’
The Covid pandemic ‘war’ was essentially fought and won by academics calling in favours — but we cannot rely on this again. All those interviewed here agree that it is neither reasonable nor feasible to expect a group of academics to shoulder this burden again ‘to get us out of another hole’, as Professor Lambe puts it.
‘The UK leadership of the G7 in 2021 resulted in some ambitious aspirations around pandemic preparedness, particularly the 100- day mission to respond to pandemic threats [a report on how the world can respond more quickly to future pandemics],’ says Professor Gilbert. But ‘more strategic UK and global investment and planning is urgently needed,’ says Professor Hill.
Even though diseases such as rabies, Rift Valley fever and Crimean- Congo haemorrhagic fever are usually seen as just regional viral threats in Africa, Covid (and more recently monkey pox) has shown us how quickly viruses spread around the world.
‘We need to be better prepared for diseases we already know about — such as MERS and Ebola — and this involves manufacturing and stockpiling vaccines ready to be used in trials if an outbreak occurs,’ says Professor Gilbert.
Epidemiologists also warn that trade in wildlife, increased deforestation and other pressures created by intensive farming are creating opportunities for another new disease to emerge.
‘Disease Y [the code name given to the next new potential pandemic- causing pathogen] could emerge this year or in 50 years — but we can and surely must do better next time,’ says Professor Gilbert.
Professor Hill believes the Government needs to take a more radical approach, viewing future outbreaks as a bio-defence problem (i.e. a threat to our country’s security from exotic pathogens) rather than simply a health issue.
He told Good Health: ‘ Trying to prepare for fighting a new disease by funding it out of an already constrained health research budget is never going to be adequate.
‘The world lost trillions from Covid. Why aren’t we taking a tiny fraction of those trillions and investing that in preventing losing trillions next time?’
And despite the massive economic and personal cost of Covid, things could easily be much worse next time — while Covid-19 was highly transmissible, the fatality rate was just one per cent. Ebola, though much less transmissible, has a mortality rate of 50 per cent.
Professor Hill warns: ‘ If we encounter a much worse virus than Covid next time around, we’re in deep trouble.’