Ex-WHO head says just $5 per person a year could prevent future pandemic

Spending $5 per person annually on global health security over the next five years could prevent a future “catastrophic” pandemic, according to a former head of the World Health Organization (WHO).

It would cost the world billions of dollars, but that amount would be a huge saving on the $11tn response to Covid-19, said Gro Harlem Brundtland, who, with other prominent international experts, sounded the alarm over the threat of a fast-spreading deadly pandemic last September.

The costs are based on estimates by McKinsey & Company, which found the average annual costs to prepare for pandemic over the next five years would be equivalent to $4.70 per capita.

Brundtland, co-chair of the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB) and a former prime minister of Norway, said there had been a collective failure to take prevention and response seriously and to prioritise it. “We are all paying the price,” she said.

Read more via The Guardian