Stronger international cooperation needed to fight infectious disease
In the G20 Extraordinary Virtual Leaders’ Summit on COVID-19, Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated that major infectious disease is the enemy of all. Viruses respect no borders and the battle against them calls for the collective cooperation of countries around the globe. The COVID-19 outbreak attacked us all by surprise, threatening the health of all humanity, causing constant instability in the international economic and political landscape. In this context, countries should strengthen cooperation and work together to deal with the situation. At the same time, they should systematically summarize the historical experiences and lessons of the international community in dealing with public health events, enhance consensus, and reduce disputes, so as to jointly promote the optimization and transformation of the global governance system.History is flush with global disasters that were triggered by severely infectious diseases with high mortality rates. For example, Europe was struck by the Black Death in the Middle Ages, and the Great Influenza broke out a hundred years ago.
The Great Influenza to some extent accelerated the end of World War I, and after then, countries around the world began to explore and construct new international systems and global patterns. The development from the League of Nations to the United Nations reflected the strong consensus of all countries to seek peace and development. After World War II, health cooperation mechanisms with a global scope were gradually established. A more functional World Health Organization (WHO) took shape, and a series of international conventions such as the International Health Regulations reached outcomes with legal significance. In addition, various health cooperation mechanisms at the global, regional and national levels were formed.
The WHO-led international health cooperation mechanism has long played an active role in the prevention and control of major infectious diseases. The organization has continuously enhanced its capacity to monitor, assess and respond to infectious diseases. In addition, it has assisted countries in strengthening health and epidemic prevention systems and in developing vaccines to provide better basic conditions for epidemic control. After the pandemic struck, the mechanism was also able to conduct timely assessment and early warning and to coordinate countries to jointly prevent the international spread of the pandemic. It also provided international health assistance to pandemic centers and developing countries. With the continuous optimization of the mechanism, though new-type infectious diseases such as SARS, avian influenza, and Ebola have continued to occur, they have never resulted in disastrous consequences like what happened with the Black Death.
But the functioning of the international health cooperation mechanism needs three prerequisites: First, advanced biological medicines need to be developed to effectively prevent and guard against the fatal virus. Second, countries must respond quickly and effectively to outbreaks and work together to contain the international spread of the virus. Third, the medical resources of each country should have the capacity to treat those infected and be effectively deployed on a global scale. However, during the COVID-19 outbreak, all three premises have been undermined by the “fatal conceit” of some countries, which has led to the rampant global spread of the virus.
Today, given the advanced level of medical and health care, people have relaxed their vigilance against new infectious diseases. In fact, apart from smallpox, which has been eradicated, there are still many major infectious diseases that can only be controlled but not eliminated. When faced with the novel coronavirus, people were unaware of its severe infectiousness at first.
In addition, some Western countries have failed to carry out effective domestic prevention and control in a timely fashion. Despite constant warnings and appeals from the WHO, some countries have been slow to mobilize anti-virus work in an active way, which has made the international cooperation sluggish. Moreover, prejudice from Western countries has aggravated the situation. Some Western countries continue to attack other countries out of ideological prejudice, making it difficult for the international community to conduct effective cooperation in the fight against COVID-19.
The pandemic is still spreading fast on the global scale, which is the unprecedented grim situation faced by mankind since the arrival of the globalization era. In the fight against COVID-19, China has taken the lead in turning the situation around and accumulated a series of successful experiences. For example, the decisive measures of city lockdown, initiation of mobile hospitals, the construction of quarantined hospitals, comprehensive virus detection, radical quarantine measures, and strict rules for wearing masks—these means all had immediate effects.
In the long run, the threat of major infectious diseases will continue to exist. The international community has formed a basic consensus concerning the prevention and control of major infectious diseases. Any blind confidence, arrogance, stereotyping and prejudice that run counter to such experience will not only undermine concerted efforts to overcome difficulties but also ultimately backfire. Given the complex pandemic situation, China’s successful experience should integrate into the larger picture of international experience. To help world countries, especially developing countries, win an early victory against the virus, we must strengthen the communication with other countries through mutual learning and joint effort and also actively facilitate the international health cooperation mechanism.
Du Huan and Gao Qiqi are from the Institute of Political Science at the East China University of Political Science and Law.
edited by BAI LE