Planning for the next pandemic: facts and figures

ABSTRACT

The world is not prepared,” said the report by the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB), a body co-convened by the World Bank and World Health Organization (WHO). According to the World Wide Fund For Nature, three or four new zoonotic diseases are emerging each year, and the problem is likely to worsen because of the need to feed a growing population and demand for wild meat as both a necessity and delicacy. According to the GPMB, the 20 per cent fall in Sierra Leone was enough to wipe out five years of development. [...]pressure looks set to grow to contain crop diseases, amid the world’s growing population and a rise in the number of people facing food insecurity from 23 per cent in 2014 to 26 per cent in 2018, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization.