The next global pandemic could happen at any time so like it or not, preparations must start from now, even if the Corona pandemic cannot be fully controlled. This was stated by Singapore’s senior minister, Tharman Shanmugaratnam.
"We don't have the luxury of waiting until Covid is over before we start preparing for the next pandemic, because the next pandemic could come at any time," Tharman said at the G-20 summit.
"So we can use our current efforts to combat Covid, to build the capabilities needed to deal with the next outbreak," he added.
The Corona outbreak itself started around March last year and spread worldwide, starting from Wuhan around the end of 2019. According to data from Johns Hopkins University, COVID-19 has so far infected more than 186 million and caused at least 4 million deaths .
One of the discussions at the G-20 meeting was to prepare for a quick response in case the pandemic reappears in the future. One is by providing sufficient funds for the WHO and other institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank to fund joint efforts to combat the epidemic.
According to Tharman, at present, the international system for responding to the global pandemic is fragmented and lacks funding so that fighting the Corona pandemic is considered not optimal.
Disease pandemics are nothing new, often occurring in the past, before the Corona outbreak appeared in the present. Call it the influenza pandemic that erupted in 1918 or the SARS pandemic on a smaller scale a few years ago.
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