pandemic

World Politics
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World Bank launches insurance scheme to fund pandemic responses

The World Bank has launched a global insurance fund aimed aimed at speeding up the international community’s response to pandemic disease outbreaks. The impetus for the innovative financial scheme was the 2013-2016 West Ebola outbreak that, due in part to the global community’s slow response, killed more than 11,000 people and ended up costing more than $10 billion to put down.

Global Health
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Gates and partners launch epidemic preparedness initiative

Pandemics beware. Bill Gates is coming for you armed with a new vaccine initiative and $700 million. A global health coalition unveiled at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, aims to prevent the next great pandemic. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) said that it will help develop vaccines for Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)-coronavirus, Lassa and Nipah.

Global Health
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The never-ending threat of pandemic flu

These are all, or well most of them, legitimate concerns and efforts aimed at preparing us for the big one. But the question is if these scares fail to explode into a large-scale pandemic, will the public — and policy makers — be better prepared or somehow inoculated against taking the threat seriously in the future?

Global Health
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When Pig Flu Flew

Critics are claiming public health experts last year hyped the potential threat of a uniquely piggish version of the influenza virus – the H1N1 virus, or so-called swine flu. This time, however, some of the critics add that the hype was done to benefit the drug industry. The World Health Organization and other leading health authorities strongly reject the criticism, saying they acted prudently given the risk of a deadly pandemic such as the world experienced in 1918.