Devex: Pandemic response a cycle of ‘panic and neglect,’ says World Bank president
“‘We are really not ready’ for another pandemic outbreak on the scale of the 2014 Ebola crisis, World Bank President Jim Kim has said, adding that international support for the bank’s new pandemic financing facility has collapsed to just two donors. Speaking yesterday at the opening session of the Skoll World Forum in Oxford, U.K., Kim said that ‘what happens every time’ in the face of pandemics is a cycle of ‘panic, neglect, panic, neglect.’ While the World Bank has established a Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility since the Ebola outbreak, which is backed by insurers and will ensure that funds can be dispersed quickly in response to future outbreaks, the international community has fallen back into a ‘lull’ and remains ill-prepared, he said, describing the situation as ‘scary’…” (Edwards, 4/5).