We had the recent experience of responding to a pandemic and a ready vaccine, so “why weren't we able to stop the monkeypox outbreak?” asks BIO President and CEO Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath in her latest I am BIO podcast.
Learning to prepare: The podcast looks at our faltering response to the monkeypox virus and investigates plans for better pandemic preparedness.
A non-moving target: “Monkeypox is not constantly evolving. It is probably an older virus in the human population,” and over time virus mutation slows, Dr. Lynn Goldman, a top epidemiologist at George Washington University tells the podcast.
So our vaccines should be future-proofed, but the stockpile we held against a smallpox bioterror threat—that was effective against monkeypox—dwindled from 20 million to 2,400, leaving us scrambling to update supplies. Before the vaccines expired, we could have sent some to Africa, to address the 2017 monkeypox outbreak there, but we didn’t do that, or otherwise prepare, says Dr. Asha George of the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense.
The solution is to remember lessons from Operation Warp Speed and maintain a continuous, coordinated response. “There needs to be a central body that brings together people from industry and academia, and works with people from the government in order to develop sound policy,” Dr. John Redd of the Medical Countermeasures Coalition tells Dr. Michelle. He advocates a system capable of “keeping up with the pathogens themselves.”
“It is tempting to move on once a crisis is behind us, but as we've learned today, we can't afford to stop preparing for the next pandemic, and it could be even worse, especially if no one is paying attention,” says Dr. Michelle. We must “invest in the research, development, and biomedical infrastructure that will help us respond when the time comes.”
Listen to the podcast.
