Pandemic Preparedness Panel Says Global COVID-19 Response Insufficient, 'All Paying Price'

Pandemic Preparedness Panel Says Global COVID-19 Response Insufficient, 'All Paying Price'

The Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB), a joint arm of the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), issued an annual report on Monday, criticizing the world leaders for failing to adequately and effectively prepare for the COVID-19 pandemic, plunging the world into a disorder

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th September, 2020) The Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB), a joint arm of the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), issued an annual report on Monday, criticizing the world leaders for failing to adequately and effectively prepare for the COVID-19 pandemic, plunging the world into a disorder.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed a collective failure to take pandemic prevention, preparedness and response seriously and prioritize it accordingly. It has demonstrated the fragility of highly interconnected economies and social systems, and the fragility of trust. ... Financial and political investments in preparedness have been insufficient, and we are all paying the price," the report, dubbed "A World in Disorder," read.

The GPMB noted that it had warned the world leaders in its 2019 report � A World at Risk � of the threat of a rapidly spreading pandemic in China and had previously called for urgent actions to prepare the world for health emergencies, and yet the countries failed to take adequate action.

"Progress in implementing these actions has been limited. It is not as if the world has lacked the opportunity to take these steps. There have been numerous calls for action in these areas over the last decade, yet none have generated the changes needed," the new report read.

According to the WHO's monitoring board, the coronavirus pandemic is far from over.

"The GPMB calls for urgent actions to strengthen the current response to COVID-19 and better prepare the world for future pandemics and health emergencies; to bring order out of catastrophe and chaos," the panel said.

The COVID-19 outbreak was declared a pandemic on March 11. To date, more than 28.6 million people have been infected with the coronavirus worldwide, with over 917,000 fatalities, according to figures from the WHO.