Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted vast differences across countries in their responses to the emergency and their capacities to implement public health measures that could slow the progression of the disease.As public health systems are the first line of defense during pandemics, it has become clear that sustained investment in strengthening public health infrastructure is a major need in all countries, irrespective of income levels. Drawing on the successful experiences of Switzerland, Georgia, and New Zealand in dealing with COVID-19, we suggest prioritizing core public health capacities with links to the International Health Regulations, improving international cooperation, coordination, and multisectoral action, addressing health inequities by targeting vulnerable groups, and enhancing health literacy, including through sophisticated and sustained communication campaigns to build resilience. These measures will ensure that health systems and communities will be better prepared for the disruptions that future disease outbreaks will inevitably bring.
Highlights
Over the past several months, the world has been living in a state of public health emergency due to the COVID19 pandemic
Drawing on the successful experiences of Switzerland, Georgia, and New Zealand in dealing with COVID-19, we suggest prioritizing core public health capacities with links to the International Health Regulations, improving international cooperation, coordination, and multisectoral action, addressing health inequities by targeting vulnerable groups, and enhancing health literacy, including through sophisticated and sustained communication campaigns to build resilience
While the world is still waiting for a much-needed vaccine and treatment against COVID-19, now is the time to rethink and ‘reboot’ our approach to pandemic preparedness by strengthening public health systems and multisectoral coordination and their links to the International Health Regulations 2005 (IHR)
Summary
Over the past several months, the world has been living in a state of public health emergency due to the COVID19 pandemic. Highly-specialized treatments, and technological innovation over the past decades have increased demand for fast fixes to health problems and tended to sideline public health responses, resulting in chronic underinvestment in core public health capacities, including pandemic preparedness and response, even in many wealthy nations [2]. Experiences from this and previous outbreaks (e.g., SARS, Ebola, Zika, Influenza) have taught us that viruses do not respect borders, that both rich and poor countries are vulnerable, that disadvantaged populations are hardest hit, and that weak public health capacities for disease surveillance, monitoring and reporting are a risk to health security. Global solidarity and cooperation among governments, civil society, and the private sector are essential to overcome the health challenges of the 21st century [3]
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