Preventing is better than curing: prevention mechanisms to limit the emergence of future pandemics

Diseases spread from animals to humans, known as zoonoses, account for over 75% of emerging infectious diseases in humans with projections indicating that this number could rise sharply in the future.?The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the need to take more action on prevention mechanisms ahead of crises outbreaks, and to adopt a global, multi-sectoral approach to fight more effectively against the emergence of future pandemics.

Zeev Noga, Secretary General of PREZODE, one of the 2023 PPF Scale-up projects, and Marisa Peyre, PREZODE cofounder, project leader, and Deputy head of ASTRE research unit, CIRAD sat down with the PPF to explain.

The PREZODE (Preventing ZOonotic Disease Emergence) initiative is based on the “One Health” prism, an integrated approach to balance and optimize the health of people, animals and the environment. Why is it crucial to improve pandemic prevention?

Zeev Noga (ZN) and Marisa Peyre (MP): Most emerging pandemic threats originate in zoonotic viruses that emerge in the wild. The One Health approach, which embraces human, animal, and environmental health, is therefore necessary to understand and prevent animal to human spillover. The cost of prevention is at least 100 times lower than the losses generated by such spillovers. Pandemic preparedness have so far only focused on responding, without integrating early detection in their strategies. This led to the failure to contain Covid-19 or the Ebola outbreak. Funding prevention strategies is crucial to avoid a new pandemic, which could be worse than Covid.

The “AfriCam” project is the first operational component launched within PREZODE. What are the lessons learned from implementing it?

ZN and MP: A multi-sectorial collaboration is required to build trust and understanding, thus putting prevention into action. This implies engaging and empowering local communities. In that regard, AfriCam’s implementation had to coordinate agendas of the codesigning process on the field with the specific timing of financial mechanisms. Thanks to the flexibility of our donor, AFD, we succeeded in implementing AfriCam diligently and adjusted its deployment to local constraints in the five countries involved: Senegal, Guinea, Cameroon, Madagascar, and Cambodia.

During the World Resilience Summit in Geneva, you discussed the creation of Public-Private partnership solutions for pandemic prevention, preparedness & response: could you tell us more about the stakes of this multistakeholder dialogue?

ZN and MP: Success in prevention and preparedness lies in an inclusive approach. PREZODE values a multi-sectoral and multistakeholder dialogue to promote and advocate prevention. In order to tackle the drivers of outbreaks such as climate change and biodiversity loss, we must break these silos. The private sector has a critical role to play to ensure sustainability of the prevention actions at local and national levels, while governments and donors must recognize the importance of prevention, add it in their political agenda, implement and foster it in the Pandemic Accord currently being negotiated.

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