As a part of President Favardin’s Special Lecture Series on Pandemics, Stevens welcomed Doctor W. Ian Lipkin to discuss the idea of a global public health consortium, a group of people who would be dedicated to preventing another outbreak like COVID-19.
According to Dr. Lipkin, this consortium would take the form of a collaborative global program focused on creating an infectious disease epidemiology network. Due to his extensive experience with recent outbreaks, including SARS in China (2003) and Zika in the United States (2016), Dr. Lipkin understands how beneficial global collaboration is during worldwide public health threats.
Before he discussed the importance of a global public health consortium, Dr. Lipkin highlighted the magnitude of undiscovered viruses and how to prevent this from causing another outbreak like COVID-19. According to Dr. Lipkin, about 70% of infectious diseases are zoonotic diseases, meaning they originate from animals and are spread to humans. One of his studies estimates that there are at least 320,000 mammalian diseases yet to be discovered. Dr. Lipkin noted that even though he and other scientists have ways to discover these diseases, “we do not have the ability to look at sequencing and tell you which virus is going to be the next viral pandemic.” Nonetheless, he emphasized that the new serology technology has improved greatly. Serology is the study of serums or other bodily fluids. In this case, it is used to identify certain antibodies one may have. This is extremely important for epidemiologists to study viruses and diseases. Furthermore, their sequencing technology has also improved greatly and can now be, as Dr. Lipkin described, “distributed democratically” worldwide to better understand viruses before they become serious worldwide threats.
Dr. Lipkin made a point to emphasize the importance of global collaboration on many fronts. For instance, countries could cooperate to widely distribute improved sequencing technology or ensure abundant vaccinations. “We need to make a commitment to vaccinating the entire world,” Dr. Lipkin stated. However, Lipkin addresses how the anti-vax movement has made this agenda increasingly difficult. It has become clear that the virus is not the only thing that is highly transmissible. With the advancements of social media, the spread of misinformation is proving to be just as dangerous as the virus itself.
To combat misinformation, a collaborative global program to share data would be very beneficial. In 2005, the World Health Organization established the International Health Regulations to “outline the countries’ rights and obligations in handling public health events and emergencies that have the potential to cross borders.” Dr. Lipkin hopes to collaborate with other scientists and countries to implement a program that would serve a similar purpose to the International Health Regulations of 2005. The main goal would be to identify and prioritize infectious agents based on pandemic risks. A second goal would be to share data and build the infrastructure needed to produce, validate and implement drugs and vaccines to reduce morbidity and mortality.
To end his talk Dr. Lipkin addressed the concern that the COVID-19 pandemic originated in a lab. He said “there were none of the telltale markers that we would have seen if the virus would have been deliberately made.”
To learn more, check out the recording of this Special Lecture Series Event on the Stevens website.
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