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World invests too little and is underprepared for disease outbreaks, report warns

BMJ 2016; 352 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.i225 (Published 14 January 2016) Cite this as: BMJ 2016;352:i225
  1. Anne Gulland
  1. 1London

The world must invest £3bn (€3.98bn; $4.33bn) every year to prepare for future pandemics, a report has urged. The Commission on Creating a Global Health Risk Framework for the Future warned in its report that the yearly global cost of potential pandemics is around £40bn.1

The commission, sponsored by the Wellcome Trust in partnership with organisations including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, said that governments and private and philanthropic bodies must increase their spending on pandemics. The World Bank has estimated that the Ebola epidemic cost around $2bn (£1.39bn; €1.84bn), and the commission’s own modelling suggests a 20% chance of four or more pandemics occurring over the next 100 years.

The commission said that the rate of …

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