Abbott announced the findings of a new survey; among leading infectious disease experts around the world on the state of pandemic preparedness and found that while most agree that preparation has improved since the COVID-19 pandemic, respondents say significant gaps remain in building surveillance programs to identify emerging pathogens, public health funding and having adequate testing infrastructure capabilities. The survey, commissioned by the Abbott Pandemic Defense Coalition, asked more than 100 experts in virology, epidemiology, and infectious diseases around the world about their priorities for addressing the gaps in readiness for disease outbreaks, their views on how the changing environment is impacting infectious diseases, and their suggestions for building a resilient healthcare system capable of identifying and responding to emerging disease outbreaks around the world. Just as scientists have developed sophisticated monitoring systems to track emerging storms and hurricanes, our job as virus hunters is to identify pathogens that have the potential to spark outbreaks in order to stay one step ahead.
Disease surveillance acts as our radar, helping us prioritize which viruses are most likely to trigger an outbreak and where those outbreaks may occur." Gavin Cloherty, PhD, Head, Infectious Disease Research, Abbott When asked to classify the types of pathogens that are most likely to start outbreaks: Respondents were evenly split on whether a new pathogen (50%) or chan.