{"id":341875,"date":"2019-09-18T13:07:21","date_gmt":"2019-09-18T11:07:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=341875"},"modified":"2019-09-18T13:07:21","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T11:07:21","slug":"a-global-pandemic-could-travel-anywhere-in-the-world-in-36-hours-and-kill-up-to-80-million-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/341875\/a-global-pandemic-could-travel-anywhere-in-the-world-in-36-hours-and-kill-up-to-80-million-people\/","title":{"rendered":"A global pandemic could travel anywhere in the world in 36 hours – and kill up to 80 million people"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new study has warned that there is a growing risk of a global pandemic breaking out – and the world is not prepared to handle the dire consequences.<\/p>\n

This was one of the major findings in a new report<\/a> <\/strong>released by the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB), an independent monitoring and accountability body that tracks the preparedness for global health crises.<\/p>\n

While scientific and technological developments provide new tools that advance public health (including safely assessing medical countermeasures), they also allow for disease-causing micro-organisms to be engineered or recreated in laboratories, the GPMB said.<\/p>\n

“A deliberate release would complicate outbreak response; in addition to the need to decide how to counter the pathogen, security measures would come into play limiting information-sharing and fomenting social divisions,” it said.<\/p>\n

“Taken together, naturally occurring, accidental, or deliberate events caused by high-impact respiratory pathogens pose global catastrophic biological risks”.<\/p>\n

Pandemic<\/strong><\/p>\n

The world would not be prepared for a fast-moving, virulent respiratory pathogen pandemic, the GPMB said.<\/p>\n

It noted that the 1918 global influenza pandemic sickened one-third of the world population and killed as many as 50 million people – 2.8% of the total population at the time.<\/p>\n

“If a similar contagion occurred today- with a population four times larger and travel times anywhere in the world taking less than 36 hours, 50-80 million people could perish,” it said.<\/p>\n

“In addition to tragic levels of mortality, such a pandemic could cause panic, destabilise national security and seriously impact the global economy and trade.”<\/p>\n

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Costly<\/strong><\/p>\n

In addition to the human factor, the GPMB said that there are severe financial costs associated with diseases outbreaks.<\/p>\n

Estimated costs of past events include:<\/p>\n