World ‘dangerously unprepared’ for next pandemic, Red Cross warns

All countries remain “dangerously unprepared” for the next pandemic, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) has warned, saying future health crises could also collide with increasingly likely climate-related disasters.

Despite three “brutal” years of the COVID-19 pandemic, strong preparedness systems are “severely lacking”, the IFRC said in its World Disasters Report 2022, published on Monday. It called on countries to update their preparedness plans by year’s end.

The world’s largest humanitarian network said building trust, equity and local action networks were vital to get ready for the next crisis.

The recommendations were released on the third anniversary of the World Health Organisation declaring COVID-19 an international public health emergency.

“The next pandemic could be just around the corner,” said Jagan Chapagain, Secretary General of the IFRC, the world’s largest disaster response network. “If the experience of COVID-19 won’t quicken our steps toward preparedness, what will?”

The report said countries need to be prepared for “multiple hazards, not just one”, adding that societies only became truly resilient through planning for different types of disasters because they can occur simultaneously.

The IFRC cited the rise in climate-related disasters and waves of disease outbreaks this century, of which COVID-19 was just one.

It said extreme weather events are growing more frequent and intense “and our ability to merely respond to them is limited”.

The report said major hazards harm those who are already the most vulnerable. It called leaving the poorest exposed “self-defeating”.

The report also said countries should review their legislation to ensure it is in line with their pandemic preparedness plans by the end of 2023 and adopt a new treaty and revised international health regulations by next year that would invest more in the readiness of local communities.

(Excerpt from Al Jazeera) town whose ruins have been a Ukrainian bastion since the outset of the war.

Pushilin's adviser, Yan Gagin, said fighters from Russian mercenary force Wagner had taken partial control of a supply road leading to Bakhmut, a city that has been Moscow's main focus for months.

A day earlier, the head of Wagner said his fighters had secured Blahodatne, a village just north of Bakhmut.

Kyiv said it had repelled assaults on Blahodatne and Vuhledar, and Reuters could not independently verify the situations there. But the locations of the reported fighting indicated clear, though gradual, Russian gains.

Zelenskiy said Russian attacks in the east were relentless despite heavy casualties on the Russian side, casting them as payback for Ukraine's success in pushing Russian forces back from the capital, northeast and south earlier in the conflict.

"I think that Russia really wants its big revenge. I think they have (already) started it," Zelenskiy said.

"Every day they either bring in more of their regular troops, or we see an increase in the number of Wagnerites," he told reporters in the southern port city of Odesa. (Excerpt from Reuters)