Urgent Pandemic Messaging of the WHO, World Bank, and G20 is Inconsistent with Their Evidence Base ⋆ Brownstone Institute

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When international agencies make claims of an “existential threat” to humanity and advocate for urgent action from countries, it should be a safe assumption that they are consistent with their own data. However, a review of the data and evidentiary citations underlying the claims of the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank, and the Group of Twenty (G20) reveals a troubling picture in which the stated urgency and burden of infectious disease outbreaks, namely those of pandemic threat, is grossly misrepresented. These discrepancies in key documents and subsequent recitations in pandemic preparedness proposals have significant policy and financial implications. Disproportionate pandemic preparedness based on these false premises risks a significant opportunity cost through unnecessary diversion of financial and political resources away from global health priorities of higher burden. As WHO Member States plan to transform the way international health emergencies are managed at the World Health Assembly in May 2024, there is a crucial need to pause, rethink, and ensure future policy reflects evidence of need.

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Author

REPPARE
REPPARE (REevaluating the Pandemic Preparedness And REsponse agenda) involves a multidisciplinary team convened by the University of Leeds
Garrett W. Brown
Garrett Wallace Brown is Chair of Global Health Policy at the University of Leeds. He is Co-Lead of the Global Health Research Unit and will be the Director of a new WHO Collaboration Centre for Health Systems and Health Security. His research focuses on global health governance, health financing, health system strengthening, health equity, and estimating the costs and funding feasibility of pandemic preparedness and response. He has conducted policy and research collaborations in global health for over 25 years and has worked with NGOs, governments in Africa, the DHSC, the FCDO, the UK Cabinet Office, WHO, G7, and G20.

David Bell
David Bell is a clinical and public health physician with a PhD in population health and background in internal medicine, modeling and epidemiology of infectious disease. Previously, he was Director of the Global Health Technologies at Intellectual Ventures Global Good Fund in the USA, Programme Head for Malaria and Acute Febrile Disease at the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) in Geneva, and worked on infectious diseases and coordinated malaria diagnostics strategy at the World Health Organization. He has worked for 20 years in biotech and international public health, with over 120 research publications. David is based in Texas, USA.

Blagovesta Tacheva
Blagovesta Tacheva is a REPPARE Research Fellow in the School of Politics and International Studies at the University of Leeds. She has a PhD in International Relations with expertise in global institutional design, international law, human rights, and humanitarian response. Recently, she has conducted WHO collaborative research on pandemic preparedness and response cost estimates and the potential of innovative financing to meet a portion of that cost estimate. Her role on the REPPARE team will be to examine current institutional arrangements associated with the emerging pandemic preparedness and response agenda and to determine its appropriateness considering identified risk burden, opportunity costs and commitment to representative / equitable decision-making.

Jean Merlin von Agris
Jean Merlin von Agris is a REPPARE funded PhD student at the School of Politics and International Studies at the University of Leeds. He has a Master’s degree in development economics with a special interest in rural development. Recently, he has focused on researching the scope and effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions during the Covid-19 pandemic. Within the REPPARE project, Jean will focus on assessing the assumptions and the robustness of evidence-bases underpinning the global pandemic preparedness and response agenda, with a particular focus on implications for wellbeing.
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