I N T E R N A T I O N A L A N A L Y S I S
The global crisis triggered by SARS-CoV-2 shows that
international organizations, such as the WHO, have a key
role to play in responses
PANDEMICS:
A GROWING RISK
in the 21st century
Mar Hidalgo García
Senior Analyst of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies
THROUGHOUT the history of humankind, the world has
suffered several pandemics costing the lives of millions of
people and giving way to changes in societies. It suffices to
recall the so-called 1918 Spanish flu, which killed up to 50
million people. However, from the middle of the 20th century to the
present time, medicine had reached a stage of victory and control of
epidemics thanks to vaccination campaigns, antibiotic treatments, and
improvements in hygiene and health infrastructures. But this victory
has not lasted long and over the past decades scientists have been
warning of a dramatic increase in infectious disease outbreaks, which
have tripled since the 1980s.
The World Health Organization (WHO) warned in 2018, almost as
a premonition, that the world should be prepared to face a “Disease X”
caused by a virus or bacteria that could not only endanger public health
but also destabilize the world economy.
The scientific community also estimates that approximately 75 per
cent of emerging infectious diseases in humans are zoonotic diseases,
that is, those originating in animals —generally non-domestic ones—
that at some point are transmitted to humans, as was the case with the
avian flu virus, the swine flu virus, SARS-CoV, or the most recent virus
—which is jeopardizing the entire world— SARS-CoV-2, originated
in Wuhan and also known as COVID-19. While the international
community has made progress in improving global health security,
COVID-19 has shown that the world is vulnerable to an infectious
disease outbreak as it has the potential to become a pandemic, cause
widespread casualties and destabilize the world economy. The new
coronavirus has also highlighted that the consequences of a disease
outbreak stem not only from the transmissibility, morbidity or mortality
of the pathogen but also from the degree of interconnection that the
place of origin —in this case China— has with the rest of the world.
Given the scope of COVID-19, it is safe to say that it is a “Disease
X” as mentioned by the WHO. The problem is that it might not be
the only one, since epidemic outbreaks are natural events that have
occurred and will continue to occur in the future, and there are also
many factors indicating that we are facing a new era in the occurrence
and spread of infectious diseases.
One of these factors will be the massive, rapid, poorly planned, non-inclusive
and resource-scarce urban growth taking place in developing
countries. Most of this urban population lives in irregular settlements
where conditions are ideal for the spread of infectious diseases, in
particular, those transmitted by mosquitoes such as malaria, dengue
fever and yellow fever.
Conflicts and population movements also contribute to increasing
the emergence of infectious diseases. In the case of Syria, there has
been a rise in the incidence of polio due to the lack of medical personnel
and the failure to comply with the vaccination schedule. In other cases,
violence against health workers often leads to the exodus of such staff,
30 Revista Española de Defensa April 2020