PandemicsExpert Panel: Current Global Alert System “Clearly Unfit” to Prevent Another Pandemic

Published 13 May 2021

An independent report by experts offers a scathing assessment of the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic. “The current system—at both national and international levels— was not adequate to protect people from COVID-19,” the report says. The current pandemic alert system is too slow, and it lost precious time “when many more countries could have taken steps to contain the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and forestall the global health, social, and economic catastrophe that continues its grip. The Panel finds that the system as it stands now is clearly unfit to prevent another novel and highly infectious pathogen, which could emerge at any time, from developing into a pandemic.”

A panel of leading experts is today (Wednesday, 12 May) is  calling on the global community to end the COVID-19 pandemic by immediately implementing a series of recommendations to redistribute, fund, and increase the availability of and manufacturing capacity for vaccines, and to apply proven public health measures urgently and consistently in every country. 

The Panel is also recommending that national governments and the international community immediately adopt a package of reforms to transform the global pandemic preparedness and response system and prevent a future pandemic.  

The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response was appointed by the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General in response to a World Health Assembly resolution calling for an independent, impartial, and comprehensive review of experiences gained and lessons to be learned from the current pandemic. The review was also asked to provide recommendations to improve capacity for global pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response. The Panel released its findings and recommendations on Wednesday, 12 May, in its main report: COVID-19: Make it the Last Pandemic  (and see the report’s background documents).

The Panel, co-chaired by the Helen Clark, former prime minister of New Zealand, and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former president of Liberia, has spent the past eight months reviewing the evidence on how a disease outbreak became a pandemic, and on global and national responses.

The report demonstrates that the current system—at both national and international levels— was not adequate to protect people from COVID-19. The time it took from the reporting of a cluster of cases of pneumonia of unknown origin in mid-late December 2019 to a Public Health Emergency of International Concern being declared was too long. February 2020 was also a lost month when many more countries could have taken steps to contain the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and forestall the global health, social, and economic catastrophe that continues its grip. The Panel finds that the system as it stands now is clearly unfit to prevent another novel and highly infectious pathogen, which could emerge at any time, from developing into a pandemic.