No country is fully prepared for future pandemics, says ADB report

On March 24, four years ago, India imposed one of the strictest lockdowns to contain the spread of the Covid-19 virus. Country after country sealed its borders and asked its people to stay inside their homes.

However, the preparedness to tackle health emergencies did not improve one year after the pandemic. 

“In 2021, 91 per cent of economies worldwide did not have a national response plan, programme, or guidelines to provide medical countermeasures — such as vaccines and antiviral drugs — to deal with the unprecedented Covid-19 public health emergency,” according to a report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Titled, “What has Covid-19 taught us about Asia’s health emergency preparedness and response?”, the report was released on March 14.

India’s score on the Global Health Security Index declined from 43.6 in 2019 to 42.8 in 2021. The country’s score was lower than others. Japan, Brazil and Russia, meanwhile, recorded an improvement (chart 1).  

The index also revealed that no country is fully prepared for future pandemics.

India was among the top three countries to record the highest number of Covid-19 cases since January 2020, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). The United States recorded the highest, at 103.4 million as of March 3, 2024. China followed with 99.3 million cases (chart 2).

Globally, 7.04 million people lost their lives, maximum in the US. India recorded 533,495 deaths (chart 3).

The vaccination rate in India was lower compared to others, WHO data shows. As of November last year, 74 per cent of the total population had received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. In China, this figure stood at 90 per cent, in Brazil 87 per cent, in Japan 83 per cent and in the US 82 per cent. 

Also, 17 per cent of the Indian population received at least one booster dose compared to 57 per cent in China (chart 4).  

The ADB report also highlighted India’s use of the government’s three-tier system of health facilities to tackle the pandemic. 

By the end of 2020, the government had installed 15,378 treatment facilities with nearly 1.3 million isolation beds, 270,710 oxygen-supported isolation beds, 81,113 ICU and 40,627 ventilator-ICU beds, it noted. And to address oxygen shortage, the country “repurposed industrial oxygen for medical use,” it added.