The United States is ill-prepared for another global pandemic, according to the outgoing director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Dr. Rochelle Walensky.
In her essay, Walensky cited multiple public health challenges that have taken place across the world in recent years, including the ever-evolving COVID-19 pandemic, the monkeypox outbreak, and the largest outbreak of Ebola disease in Uganda, which was caused by the Sudan ebolavirus.
Walensky went on to note that over 80,000 immigrants from Afghanistan have arrived and settled in the United States in recent years, some of whom she said have cases of active measles and other diseases that were previously contained. Additionally, the “largest and longest” highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak among flocks of birds continues across the globe, she said.
“Public health work will continue to be critically important and the challenges just as complex,” Walensky wrote. “Yet I fear the despair from the pandemic is fading too quickly from our memories, perhaps because it is too painful to recall a ravaged nation brought to its knees.”
CDC ‘Battered by Persistent Scrutiny’
Walensky went on to claim that the CDC has been “sidelined” and “battered by persistent scrutiny” over mistakes it made early on in the COVID-19 pandemic.However, Walensky stressed that the U.S. response to the pandemic was hampered in part by “decades of underinvestment in public health,” which she said had rendered the nation “ill-prepared for a global pandemic.”
This, she said, could also seriously impact future responses to pandemics.
“Some estimates suggest we are 80,000 public health workers short across the United States to meet basic public health needs. To this day some of our public health data systems are reliant on old fax machines,” she wrote. “National laboratories lack both state-of-the-art equipment and skilled bench scientists to work them. During the pandemic, the answer to these prevailing problems was a rapid infusion of money — resources that were swiftly withdrawn.”
More Public Health Investments Needed
“It is not enough to support public health when there is an emergency. The roller coaster influx of resources during a crisis, followed by underfunding after the threat is addressed, exposes a broken system and puts future lives at risk,” Walensky continued.“Longstanding, sustainable investments are needed across public health, over time and administrations, to position the United States to be better prepared for the next large-scale infectious disease outbreak or other health threat,” she wrote.
“I want to remind America: The question is not if there will be another public health threat, but when,” the outgoing CDC director concluded. “The C.D.C. needs public and congressional support if it is going to be prepared to protect you from future threats.”
Walensky joins a handful of other health officials who have warned that further preparation is needed ahead of another potential pandemic.
Back in May, World Health Organization (WHO) director-general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stressed that the end of the COVID-19 global health emergency “is not the end of COVID-19 as a global health threat.”
“The threat of another variant emerging that causes new surges of disease and death remains, and the threat of another pathogen emerging with even deadlier potential remains,” the WHO director said, adding that more “effective global mechanisms” are needed to better address and respond to future emergencies.
“When the next pandemic comes knocking – and it will – we must be ready to answer decisively, collectively, and equitably,” he said.
