Global health system ‘unfit’ for purpose and major reform needed, concludes independent review
12 May 2021 • 11:00am
The Chinese army had already deployed medical specialists to Wuhan by the end of January, the epicentre of a spiralling viral outbreak that had killed 41 people, but a ‘lost’ month at the start of the crisis led to indecision and complacency in the rest of the world
Credit: HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images
The worst ravages of the Covid-19 pandemic could have been avoided had the world not “lost” a month at the start of the crisis to indecision and complacency, concludes the first major independent review of the crisis.
Covid pandemic could have been prevented, international panel of experts says Toxic cocktail of dithering and poor global coordination meant disease was allowed to span the globe, infecting at least 160million people to date
Finger of blame pointed at WHO for failing to raise the alarm sooner, and science denying world leaders for failing to take threat seriously
To end the pandemic, wealthy countries need to provide 1billion vaccines to poorest nations by September and 2billion more by year s end, experts add
In a report released in Geneva, the panel, which reviewed the World Health Organisation s response to the deadly coronavirus pandemic, also said the denial of scientific evidence was compounded by a failure of leadership to take responsibility or develop coherent strategies aimed at preventing community transmission.
A new analysis from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington suggests that globally the real toll of the COVID-19 pandemic has been seriously underestimated. The report estimates that 6.9 million people lost their lives directly to the diseases, over double the 3.3 million from official reports.
The IHME report, published last week, looked at the excess of deaths from the beginning of the pandemic on a week-by-week basis compared to what the average deaths have been in previous years. Understanding this will could make us more efficient in dealing with future pandemics.
The report authors looked at what the cause of these excess deaths could be and, obviously, COVID-19 is one of them. There have also been deaths due to disruption of health services, as hospitals struggled during the peaks of infections and increased mortality due to an increase in mental health disorders, alcohol use, and opioids during the pandemic.