Svenja Schulze (SPD), Federal Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, visits the traditional residents’ cooperative COOMFLONA in the Tapajós National Forest. /picture Alliance, BMZ, photothek.de, Thomas Imo
Berlin/Rio de Janeiro – The federal government wants to support the global pandemic fund with an additional 50 million euros. The fund, founded in 2022 in response to the coronavirus pandemic, supports poorer countries in responding more quickly to outbreaks of infection in order to prevent new pandemics.
Development Minister Svenja Schulze (SPD) explained on the sidelines of the G20 development ministers’ meeting in Rio de Janeiro that viruses do not stop at national borders. “How well we will be protected here in Germany from the next pandemic also depends on the laboratory capacities that Burkina Faso or Togo have or how well trained the medical professionals are in Cambodia.”
Investments in global pandemic preparedness have effectively protected against disease – and have also paid off financially. Effective prevention is significantly cheaper than the horrendous costs associated with a pandemic.
According to the Ministry of Development (BMZ) ensure that laboratories are better equipped, public health facilities are set up and medical personnel are trained in poorer countries. The fund also enables the expansion of early warning systems and better networking of data and assessment systems.
According to the ministry, at the meeting of development ministers, World Bank President Ajay Banga presented a new strategy for the fund for the next five years. This is what the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO) the additional funding requirement for international pandemic preparedness to $10.5 billion annually.
The economic costs of the corona crisis have been assessed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), on the other hand, estimated at at least US$12.5 trillion in 2022; This represents more than a thousand times the annual amount and more than a hundred times the amount that would be needed for precautionary measures over the next ten years in order to completely prevent a pandemic or at least significantly weaken it.
With the announcement of an additional 50 million euros, Germany remains the third largest donor, according to the Federal Development Ministry. The federal government had already pledged 119 million euros to the fund. For the first time, China and India, as well as numerous countries from the “Global South”, are also contributing to a fund of this kind. © kna/aerzteblatt.de