Commonground
Senior Moderator
28 September 2026
There is a strong economic case for countries to invest in pandemic preparedness and response (PPR) measures that help support fast action in the early stages of an emerging epidemic, a report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has warned.
Scientific studies warn that the world faces a roughly one-in-two chance of another pandemic on the scale of covid-19 within the next 25 years, the report said, making spending on PPR “a smart investment for both public health and economic resilience.”
The report: The Economic Case for Pandemic Preparedness and Response said that rapid urbanisation, deforestation, intensive farming, poorly regulated wildlife trade and changing weather patterns are raising the risk of future pandemics and noted that rising human infections with highly pathogenic avian influenza heighten these concerns.
OECD simulations using the Strategic Public Health Planning model for PPR assessed five outbreak scenarios, these being Ebola-like; avian influenza-like; influenza A-like coronavirus-like; and measles – like outbreaks, as a stress test for health systems and economies.
“When health systems are overwhelmed, economies stumble. Across all five outbreak scenarios, failure to mitigate outbreaks would result in sharp GDP contractions of between 2.7% in a coronavirus-like outbreak and 16.2% in a measles-like outbreak, on average, with the scale of damage varying across countries. Transport and storage, manufacturing and administrative and support services would consistently be amongst the hardest-hit sectors of the economy,” the report says.
The report argues that investment in PPR “is modest relative to the potential losses.” The report says that many countries have scaled back the funding available for strengthening their PPR capacity, with global PPR spending standing at $230 billion in 2022, dropping from its peak of $267 billion in 2021. “Health systems around the globe continue to face chronic workforce shortages and underinvestment in surveillance of emerging health threats,” the report warns.
Robust surveillance and the implementation of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) are highlighted in the report. One of the options for surveillance is wastewater monitoring. Many pathogens are excreted in bodily fluids before and during active infection, meaning that traces of viral or bacterial material can be detected in wastewater even when individuals do not seek clinical care, the report said. "By analysing wastewater samples for biological and chemical markers, public authorities can monitor community-level transmission trends in a way that is independent of testing behaviour or healthcare utilisation. During the COVID 19 pandemic, these advantages prompted many countries to expand their wastewater monitoring capacity as a means of supporting efforts to mitigate the outbreak.”
NPIs, which include physical distancing and ensuring safe travel, can be deployed promptly and adjusted when policy makers have “timely and accurate data on how an outbreak is unfolding.” The OECD adds that its analysis suggests that waste water surveillance can strengthen the protective impacts of NPIs and lockdown policies.
On stockpiling of strategic supplies, the report says designing resilient stockpiling strategies requires balancing financial sustainability, adaptability, operational efficiency and co-ordination. "Maintaining strategic reserves demands consistent, long-term funding, yet these costs are modest compared with the inflated prices governments face when procuring supplies during a crisis. Because health threats are unpredictable, ranging from pandemics to natural disasters and chemical, biological radiological and nuclear event, stockpiling plans must remain flexible and regularly updated through risk assessment.”
The report also said the rising threat of zoonotic disease means efforts to capture PPR capacities need to go beyond focussing solely on human health. "Many emerging pathogens originate in animals and are amplified by land-use change, food production practices and environmental degradation," it said, warning that measurement should incorporate animal health surveillance, environmental monitoring and human-wildlife interactions to identify risks early and prevent outbreaks before they reach human populations.
Further reading:
www.soci.org
There is a strong economic case for countries to invest in pandemic preparedness and response (PPR) measures that help support fast action in the early stages of an emerging epidemic, a report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has warned.
Scientific studies warn that the world faces a roughly one-in-two chance of another pandemic on the scale of covid-19 within the next 25 years, the report said, making spending on PPR “a smart investment for both public health and economic resilience.”
The report: The Economic Case for Pandemic Preparedness and Response said that rapid urbanisation, deforestation, intensive farming, poorly regulated wildlife trade and changing weather patterns are raising the risk of future pandemics and noted that rising human infections with highly pathogenic avian influenza heighten these concerns.
OECD simulations using the Strategic Public Health Planning model for PPR assessed five outbreak scenarios, these being Ebola-like; avian influenza-like; influenza A-like coronavirus-like; and measles – like outbreaks, as a stress test for health systems and economies.
“When health systems are overwhelmed, economies stumble. Across all five outbreak scenarios, failure to mitigate outbreaks would result in sharp GDP contractions of between 2.7% in a coronavirus-like outbreak and 16.2% in a measles-like outbreak, on average, with the scale of damage varying across countries. Transport and storage, manufacturing and administrative and support services would consistently be amongst the hardest-hit sectors of the economy,” the report says.
The report argues that investment in PPR “is modest relative to the potential losses.” The report says that many countries have scaled back the funding available for strengthening their PPR capacity, with global PPR spending standing at $230 billion in 2022, dropping from its peak of $267 billion in 2021. “Health systems around the globe continue to face chronic workforce shortages and underinvestment in surveillance of emerging health threats,” the report warns.
Robust surveillance and the implementation of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) are highlighted in the report. One of the options for surveillance is wastewater monitoring. Many pathogens are excreted in bodily fluids before and during active infection, meaning that traces of viral or bacterial material can be detected in wastewater even when individuals do not seek clinical care, the report said. "By analysing wastewater samples for biological and chemical markers, public authorities can monitor community-level transmission trends in a way that is independent of testing behaviour or healthcare utilisation. During the COVID 19 pandemic, these advantages prompted many countries to expand their wastewater monitoring capacity as a means of supporting efforts to mitigate the outbreak.”
NPIs, which include physical distancing and ensuring safe travel, can be deployed promptly and adjusted when policy makers have “timely and accurate data on how an outbreak is unfolding.” The OECD adds that its analysis suggests that waste water surveillance can strengthen the protective impacts of NPIs and lockdown policies.
On stockpiling of strategic supplies, the report says designing resilient stockpiling strategies requires balancing financial sustainability, adaptability, operational efficiency and co-ordination. "Maintaining strategic reserves demands consistent, long-term funding, yet these costs are modest compared with the inflated prices governments face when procuring supplies during a crisis. Because health threats are unpredictable, ranging from pandemics to natural disasters and chemical, biological radiological and nuclear event, stockpiling plans must remain flexible and regularly updated through risk assessment.”
The report also said the rising threat of zoonotic disease means efforts to capture PPR capacities need to go beyond focussing solely on human health. "Many emerging pathogens originate in animals and are amplified by land-use change, food production practices and environmental degradation," it said, warning that measurement should incorporate animal health surveillance, environmental monitoring and human-wildlife interactions to identify risks early and prevent outbreaks before they reach human populations.
Further reading:
- Pandemic Agreement: How the world will tackle future disease outbreaks
- Genomics key to new pandemic early warning system
- Better preparation needed for future pandemics
- EU prioritises threats to health while the WHO calls new vaccines to tackle
Why pandemic preparedness makes 'smart' economic sense
There is a strong economic case for countries to invest in pandemic preparedness and response (PPR) measures that help support fast action in the early stages of an emerging epidemic, a report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has warned.
www.soci.org