Abstract
Following the most intense periods of the COVID-19 pandemic, the globe can be described as recuperating and some countries are surprisingly yet to attain their hallmarks before the outbreak. Understanding and preparing for outbreaks play a huge role in curbing the menace of infectious disease pandemics and this essay seeks to justify this claim. This essay succinctly describes the terminology of pandemics before giving an overview of infectious disease pandemics. Additionally, the essay highlights the consequences of pandemics as well as the global state as regards pandemics. Finally, the essay proffers strategies, risk management and mitigation policies recommendations for pandemics.
Keywords: Infectious disease, pandemics, risk management, strategies, mitigation policies.
1.0 Introduction
Throughout the entirety of documented history, the outbreak and spread of infectious disease pandemics has been partially recurrent and incompletely alienable from human existence. Characterized by bizarreness and great public health impacts, pandemics are infectious disease outbreaks of large-scale that can significantly heighten mortality and morbidity across expanses of geographical regions and result in disturbing extents of disruption1. Pandemics have always perturbed livelihood and challenged the status quo of human existence.
Even today, as war remains stultifying between Russia and Ukraine; as the world is doused by a pummeling cryptocurrency market; and every profession is increasingly permeated by Industry 4.0 and disruptive technology (say Cloud Computing, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, et al.), the world is not assuredly free from the reach of a possible new pandemic. Thus, curbing the menace of infectious disease pandemics becomes a matter that is both urgent and quintessential. In this regard, this essay seeks to discuss the Risk Management, Strategies, and Mitigation Policies for curbing infectious disease pandemics.
2.0 An Overview of Infectious Disease Pandemics
A stroll through the world’s archives of infectious disease pandemics details some of the most deleterious pandemics experienced in history. Some of these pandemics are the HIV/AIDS from the 1980s, killing about 36 million people all time; Flu Pandemic from 2009, killing more than half a million people; 1968 Flu Pandemic, killing one million people; and the Spanish Flu, an influenza pandemic from 1918 to 1919 that killed an alarming over 50 million people (2).
Figure 1: History of Pandemics Deadliest.
Source: World Economic Forum. (3)
More prominent in the list of infectious disease pandemics is the COVID-19 pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-24. With its first discovery in Wuhan, China5, the very recent COVID-19 pandemic rocked the world starting 2019 and has until it’s decline, continuously affected every sphere of existence. The globe is still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic and the indelible impacts necessitate rethinking pandemics with schemes for curbing them.
2.1 Impacts of infectious disease pandemics
Through time, pandemics have always left indelible consequences in their wake. These consequences pose serious threats to human dignity and livelihood and some of them include:
Political and Social Consequences
Due to the high tensions that accompany pandemics, not only is there a surge in distrust amidst folks, but governments may falter in managing scarcity. The instability associated may stem from displaced populations and discrimination of minorities. Where ethno-religious tensions exist before, violence and unrest can erupt. To prevent a sense of political motivation during the Ebola outbreak, quarantine was delayed in opposition dominated areas of Sierra Leone (6).
Economic Consequences
Pandemics cause economic downturns, subpar government budgets, and fiscal shocks as trade is usually affected from a fundamental decrease in demand for specific products and services say airline, cargo, restaurants, and so on. The labour force becomes affected and human resources and staffing yields less productivity. Generally, every sector that boosts the gross domestic product is affected. From manufacturing, agriculture, education, et al., major sectors admit loss.
Health Consequences
Frontline healthcare workers are greatly impacted and their availability decreases from increased exposure causing deaths and illness. The weakening of this workforce goes on to impact the entire populace. The health impacts are more pronounced when access to care decreases say through movement blockage and reduction of care facilities and resources. The impact of pandemics on health is often measured through mortality and morbidity. July 2022, the WHO explains that the COVID-19 pandemic has since 2019 killed at least a whooping six million persons around the world (7).
Figure 2: WHO Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dashboard
Source: World Health Organization (8)
3.0 The State of the Globe as Regards Infectious Disease Pandemics
The world has been escaping threats of pandemics by no ordinary means. Across the globe, progress has been made in mitigating the threats of pandemics. The International Health Regulations are legal rules binding on the WHO for international collaboration on control, prevention, protection, and delivery of health response for diseases spreading internationally whilst avoiding unnecessary alteration of international trade and traffic (9). The International Health Regulations bear committees, frameworks, and schemes for pandemics ascribed under the policies for Public Health Emergency of International Concern (10).
Despite these policy, control, and protection developments with pandemics, a number of pandemic difficulties exist still. Few of these problems range from potential risk factors that pandemics hold for susceptible populations. Susceptibility may be due to ethnicity, age, and medical conditions, say, obesity, cancer, diabetes, et al. (11). Admittedly, the plight of healthcare workers out ways that of the entire population as they have day to day contact with infected patients.
Additionally, Low and Middle Income Countries (LMICs) have been characterized by poor pandemic governance, delayed pandemic reportage, and often slowing with harmonizing pandemic policies (12). LMICs, say Nigeria (13) , also have higher poverty levels, ineffective pandemic communication, lower health capacities, poor data on previous pandemics, and poorer preparedness. So that international cooperation does not guarantee maximal aid for these LMICs.
4.0 The Way Forward: Strategies, Risk Management, and Mitigation Policies
Bearing the enormity of the difficulties existing with still with pandemics in mind, the following risk management schemes, mitigation policies, and strategy recommendations are proffered for infectious disease pandemics;
Combining Traditional Medicine and Orthodox Medicine
In light of the plight of LMICs in assuaging pandemic risks, alternatives should be sought. Ordinarily, a significant population of these developing nations depends on Traditional Medicine for their health needs. The trust in and patronage of traditional medicine in these countries should endear the governments to open relevant schemes and develop policies for adopting traditional medicine into their dominant healthcare system. The process of such adoption is often faced by stiff opposition from orthodox health practitioners. Notwithstanding, as found in China and India, orthodox and traditional medicine integration and adoption give powerful efficacies during and control during pandemic emergencies.
Data and Research
Increasingly, the world is better data-driven and facts collected from previous pandemics can help predict infectious diseases trends. Today, not only can health experts predict strains that an infectious disease can morph into, the emergence of a pandemic can be predicted. This ability to forestall demands consequent improvement in clinical trials, manufacturing, and data-sharing. Through research, drug research precision and a reduction of vaccine development time should new pandemics spring up.
Public Private Partnerships
Pandemic focused public private partnerships (PPPs) have the potential of deploying vaccines, mobilizing funds, skills, and capabilities in the most creative ways to help attain public health. Public Private Partnership was utilized in the development of COVID-19 contact tracing app called ‘Stopp Corona’ by the Austrian Red Cross(14). These partnerships convene industry experts and innovators in ameliorating inefficiencies, inequality, and lack of transparencies that can attend healthcare delivery during pandemics. Meanwhile, the policies instituting PPPs should ensure that stakeholders are accountable through procedures and lucid rules.
Preparedness Partnerships
The government of every nation should revisit their Preparedness Partnerships to form newer treaties targeted at preventing future pandemics. These partnerships should ordinarily transcend national and continental delimits in advising world leaders about the best ways of curbing future pandemics. Minimum benchmarks of budget allocation should be recommended for the government of every country to help tackle the problem of underfunding healthcare. At pandemic summits, mitigation and preparedness roadmaps should be redrawn with countries adopting the resulting actionable policies.
Pandemic Treaties
Perhaps, pandemic treaties are the most effective strategy and risk management means for pandemics. This is because all member nations are obliged to the legally binding laws and there is no escape to the advantageous pandemic policies. The government of every country should enter into pandemic treaties to participate in the sustained political engagement. Nations should be members to these treaties to obtain the available pandemic control benefits of stronger frameworks, early detection, universal access to medical solutions, situational awareness, susceptibility reduction, surveillance, research collaborations, risk communication, and policy implementation.
Conclusion
No one pandemic that has rocked humanity has dealt with the healthcare sector in isolation. Every sphere of the human existence, growth, and livelihood has always been impacted. As such, curbing the troll of infectious disease pandemics is not just the duty of health practitioners but an affair for all global citizens. Admittedly, the larger onus lies on the Doctors, Epidemiologists, Nurses, Pharmacists, Virologists, and the entirety of the health team who are always at the forefront of the battle against infectious disease pandemics. Notwithstanding, it is time for humans of every strata to awaken to the clarion call of the SDG 3, ‘Good Health and Well-being’. It is time for leaders and policy makers from national, international, and intercontinental jurisdictions to concert efforts in ridding the world of the menace that infectious disease pandemics possess in their wake. The ball has been served, the onus lies on us!
REFERENCES
1. Madhav N, Oppenheim B, Gallivan M, Mulembakani P, Rubin E, Wolfe N. Chapter 17. Pandemics: risks, impacts, and mitigation. Disease control priorities, 2016;9.
2. Korin M. 6 of the Worst Pandemics in History [Internet]. Health: Infectious Disease; 2022 [cited 2022 July 10]. Available from https://www.health.com/condition/infectious-diseases/worst-pandemics-in-history
3. Nicolas L. A visual history of pandemics. Figure 1; History of Pandemics Deadliest. World Economic Forum. 2022 March 5. [cited 2022 July 10]. Available from https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/a-visual-history-of-pandemics
4. Guan WJ, Ni ZY, Hu Y, Liang WH, Ou CQ, He JX, Liu L, Shan H, Lei CL, Hui DS, Du B. Clinical characteristics of coronavirus disease 2019 in China. New England journal of medicine. 2020 Apr 30;382(18):1708-20.
5. Kohl KS. Arthur R R. O;Connor R. Fernandez J. Emerging Infectious Diseases. 2012. 18 (7): 1047–1053.
6. International Crisis Group. The Politics behind the Ebola Crisis. Crisis Group Africa Report 232. International Crisis Group, Brussels, 2015 October 28.
7. WHO. Coronavirus disease (COVID-2019) situation reports. Geneva: World Health Organization. 2020. [updated 2022 July 5; cited 2022 July 10]. Available from https://covid19.who.int/
8. WHO. Coronavirus disease (COVID-2019) situation reports. Figure 2: WHO Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dashboard. Geneva: World Health Organization. 2020. [updated 2022 July 5; cited 2022 July 10]. Available from https://covid19.who.int/
9. Mack A, Choffnes ER, Relman DA, editors. Infectious disease movement in a borderless world: Workshop summary. National Academies Press; 2010 Mar 10. pp. 180–195
10. Lucia M. Christina P. Lawrence OG. Anita C. Jennifer BN. An analysis of International Health Regulations Emergency Committees and Public Health Emergency of International Concern Designation. BMJ Global Health 2020;5:e002502
11. Gesesew HA, Koye DN, Fetene DM, Woldegiorgis M, Kinfu Y, Geleto AB, Melaku YA, Mohammed H, Alene KA, Awoke MA, Birhanu MM. Risk factors for COVID-19 infection, disease severity and related deaths in Africa: a systematic review. BMJ open. 2021 Feb 1;11(2):e044618.
12. Rilwanul I. The Challenge of Pandemic Governance for Low- and Middle-Income Countries after COVID-19 [Internet]. Think Global Health; 2022 Jan 5. [cited 2022 July 10]. Available from https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/challenge-pandemic-governance-low-and-middle-income-countries-after-covid-19
13. Ndubuisi F. World Bank: Nigeria, 46 Other Low-Income Countries’ Debt Burden Rose 12% in 2020 to $860bn [Internet]. ThisDay; 2021. [cited 2022 July 10]. Available from https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2021/10/11/world-bank-nigeria-46-other-low-income-countries-debt-burden-rose-12-in-2020-to-860bn/
14. Eveline V. Safeguarding Public Values in Cooperation with Big Tech Companies: The Case of the Austrian Contact Tracing App Stopp Corona. Available from SSRN 3897883. 2021 Aug 2.