‘Act on the lessons of COVID-19’, Guterres says on Epidemic Preparedness Day
The world must prepare for the next pandemic and act on lessons learned from COVID-19, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a message on Wednesday to mark the International Day of Epidemic Preparedness.
The COVID-19 pandemic affected hundreds of millions of lives, caused millions of deaths and inflicted devastating impacts on humanity.
After three years of unprecedented global efforts, on 5 May the World Health Organization (WHO) declared an end to COVID-19 as a public health emergency, stressing however, that it does not mean the disease is no longer a global threat.
“Economic damage inflicted by the pandemic endures. Many healthcare systems are struggling. Millions of children are threatened by disease after missing out on routine childhood vaccinations,” said Mr. Guterres.
Lessons to learn
The UN chief noted that three years after the first COVID-19 vaccines were developed, billions of people remain unprotected - overwhelmingly in developing countries.
“When the next pandemic arrives, we must do better. But we’re not yet ready. We must prepare and act on the lessons of COVID-19,” he urged.
“We must renounce the moral and medical disaster of rich countries hoarding and controlling pandemic healthcare supplies, and ensure everyone has access to diagnostics, treatments and vaccines,” he stressed, adding that WHO’s authority and financing must also be strengthened.
Joint efforts
He said the way forward lies through global cooperation. The world must improve surveillance of viruses, strengthen health systems, and make the promise of Universal Health Coverage a reality.
The Secretary-General said these efforts are making progress. He recalled that the High-level meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response, held in September, concluded with a robust political declaration which complements negotiations underway towards a pandemic accord.
This first-ever global agreement aims to enhance collaboration, cooperation, and equity in responding to pandemics of the future, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in his end-of-year message published on Tuesday.
The pandemic accord will help to create a safer and healthier world with a universal system of response to disease eruptions, he added.
Mr. Guterres urged countries to build on this momentum by delivering a strong, comprehensive accord, focused on equity.
“Together, let’s act on the lessons of COVID-19, prepare, and build a fairer, healthier world for all,” he said.
Fact Check
'Flawed' Japanese study on Covid vaccine death misleads online
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Health experts told AFP results from a study on the relationship between a Covid-19 vaccine and death were "negligible" and the research itself was flawed. However, social media posts misleadingly claimed the paper revealed that "70 percent of Covid-19 vaccine deaths in Japan occurred within ten days of receiving the Pfizer jab". In fact, worldwide vaccine monitoring data has shown no increased risk of death from the shots.
"Around 70 percent of people who died in Japan after receiving a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine lost their lives in the first 10 days following the jab, according to a recent study," reads a post written in simplified Chinese that was shared on X, formerly Twitter, on December 15, 2023.
"The peer-reviewed Japanese study, published in the Cureus journal on Dec. 7, looked at the association between Pfizer COVID-19 vaccination and deaths within 10 days of vaccination," the post continues.
"The risk period was defined as within 10 days of vaccination, with vaccination day being Day 1, and the control period defined as 11 to 180 days after vaccination."
The post includes a screenshot of a report by Epoch Health titled "70 Percent of Deaths from Pfizer Vaccine in Japan Reported Within 10 Days of Jab: Study".
The publication is the health section of The Epoch Times -- backed by the Falun Gong Chinese spiritual movement -- which has previously spread misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic and vaccines.
Conspiracy site Zerohedge and Natural News, a website that regularly publishes anti-vaccine articles, also shared similar claims. Both have been fact-checked by AFP for spreading misinformation, such as here, here and here.
The misleading claim also circulated in various languages including English, French, Spanish, Korean and Japanese.
However, the Japanese study being shared in the misleading posts is flawed, other researchers told AFP, and its impact is "negligible".
'Negligible' impact
The posts reference a paper published on Cureus.com on December 7, 2023, titled "Analysis of the Association Between BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 Vaccination and Deaths Within 10 Days After Vaccination Using the Sex Ratio in Japan". It is labelled as peer-reviewed.
The study used data on deaths reported in a "risk period" of 10 days after vaccination with the shot produced by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.
While it found reported deaths were concentrated during the risk period for both men and women, it concluded that the numbers were too small to contradict findings by another cohort study in Japan that found no significant increase in all-cause mortality owing to vaccination.
The social media posts misleadingly present the results of this study, said Takahiro Kinoshita, a physician-scientist and a member of Cov-Navi, a Japanese project aiming to provide accurate vaccine information which is now disbanded (archived links here and here).
Kinoshita explained that the number of deaths used in the study could not be taken as a comprehensive source due to Japan having a passive reporting system where clinicians are only required to report adverse events only when they suspected a link to vaccination.
"Clinicians are more likely to report sudden deaths occurring soon after vaccination – within 10 days," he told AFP on December 21, 2023. "Therefore, this study does not suggest that the occurrence of deaths after vaccination is higher in the early period compared to the later period."
He added that the journal was not considered a "highly impactful source" and that the impact of the analysis was "negligible".
'Flaws'
Several infectious diseases experts, who were not involved in the study, told AFP the Japanese paper was flawed.
For example, the study looked at all-cause deaths -- mortality due to any cause including "disease, complication, or hazardous exposure" -- and not vaccine associated deaths, said Raina MacIntyre, professor of global biosecurity at the Kirby Institute at the University of New South Wales in Australia (archived links here and here).
"Most of the deaths [in the study] were related to cardiovascular disease, which is the leading cause of death and illness in the world and occurs at a higher rate in men than women, particularly under the age of 65," MacIntyre said on December 21, 2023.
MacIntyre also noted that people who were prioritised for vaccination against Covid-19 in early 2021 -- the study period -- were older or had multiple chronic conditions, putting them at higher risk of dying regardless of their vaccination status.
Chunhuei Chi, professor and director of the Center for Global Health at Oregon State University in the United States, told AFP that the study omits a critical figure -- the total number of people vaccinated with the Pfizer shot in Japan -- which makes the study easy to misrepresent (archived link).
"The author acknowledged several limitations, including not considering the effects of vaccination after 11 days, and sex bias in reporting deaths, that limited the strengths of the evidence and conclusion," Chi said on December 21, 2023.
William Schaffner, professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University in the United States, pointed out the study had a "major flaw" as it had no control group (archived link).
"A rigorous study would have compared the vaccinated population with a comparable unvaccinated population similar in age and sex distribution with a similar distribution of underlying chronic illnesses," Schaffner told AFP on the same day.
This methodological bias was typical of most studies claiming higher mortality after vaccines, said Siddharth Sridhar, clinical assistant professor at the department of microbiology at the University of Hong Kong (archived link).
"Better quality cohort studies invariably find no increase in all-cause mortality after vaccination," he said on December 22, 2023.
Both Kinoshita and MacIntyre pointed out that hundreds of studies across the world on vaccine safety found no increase in the risk of all-cause death.
The World Health Organisation states that the Covid-19 vaccines are safe and effective, and estimates that in 2021 alone the jabs helped saved 14.4 million lives worldwide (archived link).
AFP has debunked hundreds of other false and misleading claims about Covid-19 vaccines here.
Tommy WANG
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