Countries are neglecting the existential threat of pandemics. Bold leadership is necessary

On the fifth anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a public health emergency of international concern, we face growing risks of even worse pandemics. But the world is not ready to respond. Leaders have not learned the lessons from COVID and other recent pandemics. Why not?

Pandemics are one of several existential threats facing us all, such as climate change and habitat and biodiversity loss (the “nature crisis”); nuclear weapons; and unregulated artificial intelligence (AI), all of which could kill millions or even billions of people and destroy the livelihoods and way of life of many more.

These threats demand global solidarity and strong political will to find common solutions based on science, analysis, and long-term thinking about how to keep our planet safe for everyone. Instead, we are witnessing a resurgence of isolationism, populism, and short-term thinking.

Along with the executive order freezing foreign aid, President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO) is particularly alarming. No country can manage a global pandemic on its own or ignore the risks of one breaking out elsewhere in the world. Viruses do not respect national borders or political ideologies. They spread quickly across the world. The world needs to work together to contain them. The WHO plays a vital role in that.

Leaders are failing to act with sufficient urgency and ambition in the face of current and future threats, partly because they are not learning the lessons from past crises. As the Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana wrote over a hundred years ago: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

These words rang in my mind as I helped unveil the Doomsday Clock in Washington DC this week. The Clock’s hands were moved forward to 89 seconds to midnight – signifying that we are at the closest point to destroying our world since the Clock’s creation in 1947.

The decision to move the Clock’s hands forward reflects both the severity of the existential threats facing humanity, and the weakness of political leadership on the global stage.

Pandemics are a case in point. Too few leaders have learned the critical lesson that international cooperation is essential to pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response. A cycle of panic and neglect has historically characterized the politics of pandemics. We are back in the neglect phase.

When the Elders (a group of former world leaders I am honored to chair) commissioned a global public opinion survey in 2024, we found people all over the world see the pandemic threat as a lower risk than other existential threats, with only 34 percent of respondents thinking it will grow in future. The vast majority of pandemic scientists think otherwise. The survey also showed most people believe that, after the experience of COVID, leaders will know what to do next time. Unfortunately, this may be little more than wishful thinking.

Nations working effectively together is essential to managing the risks of invisible pathogens that spread around the world freely, but that is not what appears to be happening.

The world is at risk of reducing its support for the WHO, at a time when its essential role in coordinating global efforts on disease surveillance, resilience, and emergency response, is needed more than ever; countries must defend the organization’s indispensable mandate to promote and safeguard global health. And other critical global health institutions are also at risk, including the Pandemic Fund and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR.

This all as naturally occurring disease outbreaks are becoming more prevalent, exacerbated by the climate and environmental crisis. Pandemic neglect is inexcusable given the lessons from COVID and the current spate of infectious disease outbreaks, including mpox and Marburg. Of grave concern is the possibility that the devasting H5N1 avian influenza outbreak in birds, cattle, and other species could turn into a full-blown human pandemic.

Meanwhile, the fast pace of scientific development–including AI–offers significant opportunities for progress with vaccines and cures. Yet without appropriate regulation, AI in the wrong hands could produce a bioengineered pathogen leading to a catastrophic new disease outbreak far worse in scale than COVID. We lack sufficient global agreement on professional norms, codes of ethics, and standard operating procedures to manage growing biosecurity risks.

COVID killed millions around the world (with some countries in my continent of Latin America particularly badly hit) and wiped trillions from the global economy. But people want to forget about it. That is understandable for individuals, but not the governments that we are relying on to have learned and applied the lessons from this catastrophe. People also want to hope that there won’t be another pandemic any time soon. But responsible politicians cannot base their policies just on hope. They need to take account of science and evidence.

The Elders are hugely concerned about the piecemeal, reactive approach to infectious disease outbreaks and the lack of attention being paid to this risk at the global level by our leaders. They are symptoms of the broader malaise in multilateralism and national leadership, and specific threats to global health security, exacerbated by the virulent movement of misinformation and disinformation about pandemics and particularly vaccines.

This is why, today, we published a new paper on pandemics, which identifies six areas for action: international attention and global leadership; a whole of society approach; equity, human rights and global solidarity; sustainable financing; disinformation and politicization; and the threats and opportunities of new technologies.

This agenda requires strong political leadership from heads of state and government. It also calls for policies that consider the needs of all parts of society, in all countries around the world. It is the nature of pandemics that none of us are safe until all of us are safe. Preventing and preparing for pandemics is a collective action problem.

Leaders did not act collectively to use the vaccines so quickly developed for COVID to maximize the number of lives that could have been saved. To avoid the inequity that hampered the global COVID response, priority must be given to increasing the research, development, and manufacturing of vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics in low and middle-income countries.

All of this requires global public investment, for everyone’s long-term benefit. It is vital that the Pandemic Fund managed by the World Bank, or another suitable mechanism, can mobilize resources and channel them to countries with insufficient domestic means to fund pandemic action. Pandemics know no borders and nor should pandemic finance.

This is a big agenda. But the costs of inaction are dramatically higher. Political leaders with an eye on their legacy must learn that lesson.