Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, has announced a £25 million aid backing to ensure its people defeat future pandemics.
The World Bank initially hosted the ‘Financial Intermediary Fund’ to help the countries whose healthcare systems are unstable and unprepared for the challenges caused by infectious diseases.
As per the reports, the covid-19 pandemic has led to at least 6.2 million deaths worldwide and caused a long financial halt and economic devastation.
Stopping a pandemic like this will require a concerted and coordinated international effort.
PM Johnson discussed with the leaders at the G7 Summit on Monday to help countries with poor healthcare systems, and pressing needs to invest in preparing other preventive measures.
The new fund will help cover the financial gaps due to COVID-19, mainly insufficient financing in national health systems and disease surveillance at the country, regional and global levels.
The Prime Minister said: “While the worst days of the coronavirus pandemic are, thankfully, behind us, we cannot be complacent. The next potential pandemic could emerge at any moment, with it the devastating human and economic consequences we have experienced over the last two and a half years.
“We must ensure we learn the lessons of COVID-19 and are better prepared next time. We owe it to the world’s people to say, ‘never again’.”
The chance of a pandemic on the scale of COVID-19 occurring in the next 25 years could be as high as 50%, and a key lesson of the coronavirus pandemic is that even small investments in pandemic preparedness can have huge returns. By contributing to preparedness in the short term, we can avoid huge economic damage in the long-term.
