Present and Future Infectious Diseases Challenges for the Greek State and Society

Abstract

The current pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) has redefined normality in many social parameters, and has imposed (and continues to) a significant additional burden on health settings, economy, and state resilience worldwide. On the other hand, the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has highlighted the vulnerabilities that pre-existed in our planning for facing major health-related events. One wonders though whether these lessons are learned, and whether they can be implemented in real life, particularly in a country like Greece, that is still under the shadow of the financial distraught of the previous decade. Based on the Global Health Security Index,1 which measures individual countries’ capability and infrastructure adequacy to deal with epidemics and pandemics, Greece has not exhibited systematic progress in improving aspects of health security that lagged behind the global average. For example, the Greek score for immunization exhibited a significant decline between 2019 and 2021. Other aspects that improved, or remained steady, between the 2019 and 2021 evaluations have not yet reached the global average, as is for example the zoonotic disease, emergency preparedness and response planning, dual-use research and culture of responsible science, real-time surveillance and reporting, case-based investigation, risk communication, medical countermeasures and personnel deployment, healthcare access, communications with health-care workers during a public health emergency, specific funding for correcting gaps identified by Joint External Evaluation or Performance of Veterinary Sciences, financing health, commitment to sharing of genetic and biological data and specimens, infrastructure adequacy, and environmental risks. That’s a lot of work to be done, and it has to be performed in times with significant infectious disease risks, either circulating or anticipated.