The world is failing to guard against the inevitable spread of a devastating flu pandemic which could kill 50 million people and wreak massive disruption around the globe, the Government has warned.
In evidence to a House of Lords committee, ministers said that early warning systems for spotting emerging diseases were “poorly co-ordinated” and lacked “vision” and “clarity”. They said that more needed to be done to improve detection and surveillance for potential pandemics and called for urgent improvement in rapid-response strategies.
The Government’s evidence appeared in a highly critical report from the Lords Intergovernmental Organisations Committee, which attacked the World Health Organisation (WHO) as “dysfunctional” and criticised the international response to the threat of an outbreak of disease which could sweep across the globe.
And these weaknesses, alas, apply to the overall infectious disease response, not just flu. Of course, that a U.N. agency like W.H.O. is “dysfunctional” is no big surprise, though W.H.O. was for a long time one of the few bright spots in the U.N.’s constellation of dysfunctional organizations.