By Daniel LAWLER Income inequality turns out to be the most reliable indicator for predicting a country’s ability to handle a pandemic, according to a group of experts, who say that governments need to completely rethink their strategy for preparing for future global health crises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By Daniel LAWLER<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Income inequality turns out to be the most reliable indicator for anticipating a country’s ability to deal with a pandemic, according to a group of experts, who say that the strategy for preparing for the next global health crises needs to be completely overhauled by governments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the 26th International AIDS Conference in Rio de Janeiro (July 26-31), this study challenges the current ways of predicting pandemics.”For decades, a country’s preparedness for a pandemic was measured by its strategic stockpiles, response plans, and the number of its laboratories,” Nobel laureate in economics Joseph Stiglitz, co-author of the study, reported in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The study shows that this is not enough,” he believes. Because “a high level of income inequality can make even wealthy and well-equipped countries dangerously vulnerable,” like the United States and the United Kingdom, where COVID-19 caused a death toll far above the global average, or Brazil and South Africa, which were supposed to be the best prepared in their respective regions.On the other hand, countries considered less prepared but with lower levels of inequality\u2014Vietnam, Mauritius, Ethiopia, Uruguay, Norway\u2014fared much better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The link between income inequality levels and the ability to cope proved to be clear and consistent. And the more pronounced these inequalities are in a country, “the harsher the pandemic will be there,” summed up for AFP Matthew Kavanagh, the study’s lead author and a researcher at Georgetown University (United States).Not inevitable
“The good news is that inequality is not inevitable: it results from political choices, and we know how to reduce it,” argues Joseph Stiglitz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Researchers urge governments to include reducing inequality in their strategy and to strengthen social protection (paid sick leave, unemployment benefits, financial aid\u2026) which, in the event of a pandemic, allows people to stay home “without having to wonder: will I be able to feed my family?” explained Matthew Kavanagh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They also call for emergency aid to be given to low-income countries and for their debt to be eased when a pandemic is declared, as well as making life-saving medical innovations accessible to the whole planet. During COVID-19, rich countries took most of the first vaccine doses, to the detriment of developing countries.It’s actually over the sharing of future vaccines, treatments, and tests that negotiations to finalize the global pandemic treaty, adopted in May 2025, hit a snag on July 20.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the 26th International AIDS Conference this week, protesters called for more Latin American countries\u2014where AIDS infection rates are rising\u2014to be able to access generic versions of an antiretroviral drug, Lenacapavir.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These efforts also recommend replacing patents with a reward system that both compensates researchers and allows the production of new drugs and vaccines worldwide, since leaving pharmaceutical companies to decide who gets access is “a recipe for new pandemics,” according to Matthew Kavanagh.Several points of this study are ‘very relevant,’ despite ‘the lack of quantitative methods (modeling, risk analysis) to support some of its hypotheses,’ said Raina MacIntyre, a global biosafety professor at the University of New South Wales, to AFP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Around 1.3 million lives could have been saved if Covid-19 vaccines had been distributed more fairly, according to a modeling study published in the journal Nature, presented Thursday in Rio and conducted by the Global Council on Inequality, AIDS and Pandemics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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