OPINION – For the Executive Director of Gavi, investments in the essential pillars of health security, including vaccination, must be maintained and not sacrificed to efforts focused on military budgets. Every week brings its share of alarming news. While Uganda contains its latest outbreak of Ebola, authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo are investigating the outbreak of a y -unidentified disease with characteristics of a similar viral hemorrhagic fever that has caused more than 50 deaths. Meanwhile, a syphilis epidemic hueses to rage in the east of the country, where conflict is intensifying.
In the Sahel, we are seeing a combination of increasing conflicts, food insecurity and climate change, destabilizing communities, displacing populations, andincreasingg vulnerability to infectious epidemics.
However, in this context of proliferating risks linked to infectious threats, many countries, in Europe and beyond, are signaling that increasing defense budgets could come at the expense of global capacities to prevent, prepare for, detect,a nd respond to epidemics and health emergencies – in short, health security.
Five years have passed since the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought the world to its knees. Just ten years ago, an Ebola outbreak in West Africa exported cases worldwide, and France contributed to the global response as the three countries at the epicenter teetered on the brink of humanitarian catastrophe and socioeconomic collapse.
Panic and negligence combine.
COVID-19 has exposed the fragmented state of our global capacity to protect our collective health from pandemic risks. For too long, the essential pillars of health security—surveillance, vaccine stockpiles and distribution systems, rapid response, resilient health systems and community engagement, and critical research and development—have been starved of investment. Inevitably, these periods of neglect have been punctuated by frantic, often delayed, and extremely costly responses to crises that could often have been foreseen, prevented, or, at a minimum, detected at a much earlier stage, before they escalated to larger proportions. We now seem to be approaching the point where these periods of panic and neglect combine.
Can we simply hope for the best? As evidenced by the many countries in Europe now struggling to fill operational gaps left by decades of military underinvestment, “hoping for the best” is not enough if we do not prepare for the worst.
Vaccines, the first line of defense
Vaccines are our first line of defense for prevention and our best weapon when it comes to responding to a growing epidemic or pandemic. Thus, in a world characterized by growing uncertainty, one thing is certain: Epidemics continue at an accelerating pace, and a new pandemic is only a matter of time. Over the past decade, every public health emergency of international concern declared by the WHO, with the exception of one, has been brought under control thanks to vaccines. This is precisely why Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, established its First Response Fund last June. And it works, as demonstrated by the rapid procurement and deployment of half a million vaccines for the MPOX response within 30 days of the outbreak being declared a continental and international emergency. The Fund now allows us to rapidly mobilize significant financing for vaccine access as soon as a new pandemic threat is detected—a gap that created uncertainty for manufacturers in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and ultimately contributed to delays in vaccine rollouts in some countries. Along with Gavi’s strategic stockpiles of vaccines for epidemic-prone diseases such as cholera, yellow fever, Ebola, and meningitis, this emergency financing mechanism helps strengthen global security. But these capacities must be preserved.
The parallels between military security and health security are numerous. It is always more effective—strategically, operationally, and financially—to maintain capabilities than to let them atrophy and start from scratch. While alliances and solidarity are essential to collective defense, their development and coordination require time and effort. Investments in the systems and equipment needed to wage war and combat disease, whether missile delivery systems or vaccine supplies, can generate economic dividends at home, including for French vaccine manufacturers, as well as a tactical and strategic advantage on the front lines.
The desire to maintain peace through strength also applies to our collective health security. If we fail to continue investing in the essential pillars of health security, including vaccination, we are doomed to repeat the catastrophic epidemics and pandemics of the past. Sacrificing health security for military investments would not only signal a retreat from the international stage but also a costly strategic error with far-reaching consequences for generations to come.
