Under-investment in preventive care key area to address: Panellists
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The panellists at yesterday's Davos Agenda virtual discussion were (clockwise from top left) Straits Times editor and moderator Warren Fernandez, AstraZeneca chief executive Pascal Soriot, Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics CEO Catharina Boehme, Hikma Pharmaceuticals executive vice-chairman Mazen Darwazah, and YMCA USA president and CEO Kevin Washington.
PHOTO: WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM/YOUTUBE
Under-investment in early detection and treatment is a key area to address as countries prepare their healthcare systems for the next pandemic, panellists said yesterday.
At a virtual discussion organised by the World Economic Forum (WEF), Ms Catharina Boehme, chief executive of the Switzerland-based Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics, said the world has paid a price for the "chronic under-investment" in testing and diagnostic infrastructure.
"Testing is the backbone for a resilient healthcare system - it is really our eyes and ears, and for every outbreak, it will be our first line of defence," she said.
Echoing Ms Boehme's point, AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot said a key lesson from the current Covid-19 crisis was the need to invest in prevention, early detection and treatment of diseases.
Only about 3 per cent of the total health expenditure among Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development countries is spent on prevention, he noted.
"We always say it's better to prevent than to cure or treat… (but) we tend to wait for people to become sick to try and arrest that, as opposed to detecting disease early and preventing it," he said, giving the example of chronic kidney disease.
The panellists were responding to a question from moderator and Straits Times editor Warren Fernandez on what can be done to prepare for future pandemics.
The discussion, titled Building Crisis-Resistant Healthcare Systems in a post-Covid World, was part of the week-long Davos Agenda, a virtual gathering of world leaders for high-level talks hosted by the WEF.
Ms Boehme said that while the industry and the World Health Organisation's Access to Covid-19 Tools Accelerator initiative has moved fast in developing tests for mass testing, "so has the virus", as new strains emerge that are potentially more transmissible.
She also flagged the issue of low testing rates in low-and middle-income countries, which are on average 10 times less than in high-income countries. "This situation has to change, not just to exit this crisis, but to prevent future ones," she added.
Another area of improvement is shifting care from hospitals to outpatient services, such as general practitioners, and using digital tools like telemedicine, said Mr Soriot.
"We also need a shift in mindset, and consider health as an asset that you invest in, rather than as a cost you try to minimise," he added.
Mr Kevin Washington, president and CEO of youth organisation YMCA USA, stressed the need to strengthen the connection between the community and those delivering healthcare.
In the United States, systemic racism has broken trust that is needed to ensure that people of low income and from different backgrounds engage in the healthcare system, he said.
Building trust requires working with organisations that are long established in the community, such as YMCA, churches and other non-profit organisations, he added.
Mr Mazen Darwazah, executive vice-chairman of London-based Hikma Pharmaceuticals, said the world has to live up to providing better standards of healthcare for all, especially vulnerable communities in the Arab countries which were the hardest hit.
On collaboration in the current pandemic, Mr Soriot said there have been both good and bad examples so far, adding: "But I can see that things are changing and international collaboration is emerging in areas of identifying early signs of new infections, new pandemics, and looking at mutations."
