How to prevent the next pandemic

Extract

Bill Gates's How to prevent the next pandemic was largely written in 2021. Since then, our knowledge of COVID–19, the book's case-study, has changed significantly. However, Gates is not concerned with dwelling on the failures of the past three years. Instead, the author uses them to present cogent arguments for robust, systemic and affordable changes to global health policy. Hence, the book does what it says on the tin: Gates provides a series of guiding recommendations so that ‘governments, scientists, companies, and individuals can build a system that will contain the inevitable outbreaks so they don't become pandemics’ (p. 18).

The book is organized accordingly, with each chapter discussing a different core component of a wider package of proposed reforms. In chapter two, Gates advocates for the creation of a permanent ‘Global Epidemic Response and Mobilization’ team, to be headed up by the World Health Organization (WHO); in chapter seven, the author discusses the current dearth of (and critical need for) outbreak response simulation exercises, akin to many countries' war gaming activities. Other chapters discuss ways to improve disease surveillance and to quickly develop and deliver viable treatments and vaccines. No single recommendation is fundamentally new or essentially innovative, but to have them presented together and without academic embellishment is very useful for a general audience. Although epidemiologists and other public health professionals will not learn new science from the book, they might learn more straightforward ways to explain the core components, competencies and tools of their field. This is the book's biggest strength; it offers clear definitions, simple charts and clever analogies that ultimately break down a number of complex issues. As we witnessed in the last few years, this accessibility is notoriously difficult even for public health communication experts. Yet Gates largely pulls it off.