Opinion: There are 4 gaps in global pandemic responses. The biggest is missing leadership
Three years after news of the first cases of Covid-19 infections and deaths began to appear, the global response to pandemics remains in a sluggish, reactive mode, waiting until dire threats emerge before initiating action. Take the latest Ebola outbreak in central Uganda. It’s been more than a month since the last case has been found, and a two-month lockdown of two districts west of the capital, Kampala, ended in mid-December. After containing the outbreak to “only” 55 deaths, everyone is ready to move on — without planning for the future.
The threat of this outbreak almost restarted efforts to test a new vaccine for the strain of Ebola that generated these infections. The work had previously been abandoned due to lack of financing, profit, and political will. The outbreak ignited a spark of hope, but it looks to have subsided before the vaccine trials could be implemented.
