Policy: Security spending must cover disease outbreaks

03 May 2016

Tadataka Yamada, V. Ayano Ogawa and Maria Freire call for research and development funding and coordination to counter global infectious-disease threats.

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Ernesto Benavides/AFP/Getty

Specialists in Peru fumigate a cemetery in an effort to prevent Chikungunya and Zika viruses from spreading.

The health emergency precipitated by the Zika virus is a salutary reminder: global preparedness for emerging pathogens with endemic or pandemic potential is crucial and needs an overhaul. These crises are not rare — Lassa fever, Ebola virus, Middle East respiratory syndrome, H1N1 influenza and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) have surfaced in head-spinning succession over the past 10–15 years. Each emergence proves how woefully unprepared the global community is to deal with worldwide health emergencies that have deep societal and economic impact.

Diagnostic tools, medicines and vaccines are in limited supply, non-existent or too costly — many people die and many more suffer in each outbreak as a result. Fear and panic spread, borders are closed, travel is restricted and commerce is shut down. After the recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the direct financial repercussions on Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea could amount to around 10%¹ of the nations' gross domestic product for 2014–15; the cost of SARS to the global economy in 2003, exceeded US$40 billion².

The health, economic and social consequences of a global health emergency are as great a threat to global and national security as those of terrorist actions. Although the world has gone to great expense and effort to prepare for the latter, it has done unacceptably little to prepare for the former, given the solemn responsibility of nations to ensure the health and security of their citizens. The United States spends at least $100 billion a year on counterterrorism efforts; it invests just $1 billion on pandemic and emerging infectious-disease programmes³.