COVID-19<\/a> having now killed more than 1.7 million people, devastated economies, upended societies and exposed the world\u2019s vulnerabilities in the starkest ways, the value of health emergency preparedness has hit home like never before. As we strive to control and recover from the current pandemic, we must think about the next. Unfortunately, it is easy to imagine a virus just as infectious but even more lethal.<\/p>\n\u201cWe can already draw many lessons from the experiences of the past year.<\/p>\n
\u201cPreparedness is a sound investment, costing far less than emergency expenditures. Societies need stronger health systems, including universal health coverage. People and families need more social protection. Communities on the frontlines need timely support. Countries need more effective technical cooperation. And we need to pay greater attention to the encroachment of people and livestock into animal habitats; 75 per cent of new and emerging human infectious diseases are zoonotic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guterres emphasised that science must be the guide towards preparedness for another pandemic and urged countries to cooperate because \u201cno one is safe unless all of us are safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe United Nations system, including the World Health Organization, is strongly committed to supporting Governments and all partners in strengthening epidemic preparedness as a crucial part of our broader work to build a healthier world and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals,\u201d Guterres said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis International Day falls on the birthdate of Louis Pasteur, the French biologist responsible for ground-breaking work on vaccinations. In honouring his work, I salute today\u2019s medical professionals, front-line personnel and essential workers who have carried the world through this emergency with such remarkable commitment. As we recover from the pandemic, let us resolve to build up our prevention capacities so that we are ready when the world faces the next outbreak.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The World Must Start Preparing For The Next Pandemic, The United Nations. In a message commemorating the first observance of the International Day of Epidemic Preparedness on Sunday, UN Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres said the idea of a virus more lethal than COVID-19 is not incredible. \u201cThis first observance of the International Day of Epidemic Preparedness […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":993,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[11,195],"tags":[140,385,386],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/untamenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/UN-Secretary-General-Antonio-Guterres.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pci3ty-fY","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/untamenews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/untamenews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/untamenews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/untamenews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/untamenews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=990"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/untamenews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":994,"href":"https:\/\/untamenews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/990\/revisions\/994"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/untamenews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/untamenews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/untamenews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/untamenews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}