Pandemonium: Risk Factors for Future Pandemics

Since the turn of the century, a series of pandemics have incited global concern: disrupting trade, bringing travel from some regions to a standstill, and spreading panic through affected and unaffected populations alike. These outbreaks – including Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), swine flu, Ebola, and most recently, Zika – have drawn attention to a system of global health governance that often responds poorly to such crises. Following the containment of Ebola, reforming global health governance and improving pandemic detection and response capabilities have been high on the agendas of actors within both the public health and global security sectors. Looking forward to the next decade, this report explores how global health governance and pandemic responses could evolve. It presents two hypothetical pandemic scenarios and considers how both global health actors and the broader geopolitical landscape could shape preparedness and response to these health threats. The scenarios could be considered “stress tests” for global health governance: which components of the global health preparedness and response system would be challenged, and which would prove resilient?