The Corona virus pandemic has shown that global security threats are no longer limited to military fields or practices of violence and extremism, but rather epidemics have become an element that may be the most dangerous due to having to deal with an invisible enemy.

From the devastation caused by climate change to the continuing threat of nuclear war, global pandemics pose another existential threat to global and national security.

And one of the reasons why global epidemics pose such a threat is that “the outbreak of these epidemics tends to exploit the gaps that already exist in our societies,” the American magazine National Interest quoted Dr. Nahid Badelia as saying.

Padilla adds in the latest episode of the “Press the Patton” program, which deals with national security issues, that these epidemics “prey on those we leave in the cold. It spreads at the expense of marginalized communities that do not have the same resources.”

Padilla is an infectious disease physician and founding director of the Center for Emerging and Infectious Disease Policy and Research at Boston University. The center aims to bring together experts to work on answers to questions that arise during pandemics, including how to educate the public about infectious diseases, prevent misinformation, successfully leverage science diplomacy, and advise on appropriate global governance. Its goal goes further to work on “bridging health inequalities beforehand so that we can make ourselves more resilient.”

Padilla points out that it is not only federal policy that affects the country’s ability to deal with catastrophic threats. She notes that the main issue, particularly in the United States, is that “over the past decade we have seen the decline of public health infrastructure at the state level.” The proposed budget for President Joe Biden’s health care administration would increase spending on health and human services by 23 percent and raise the budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to $8.7 billion, with one of the largest budget increases over the past four administrations.

However, Padilla explains that while “the national budget is important because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention itself has seen a decrease in funding during the last administration, what is not covered by that is the disparity between states and this requires participation at the state level.”

This disconnect is due to the fact that “public health in the United States is subject to the public sector and the health care system is subject to the private sector.”

In the search for solutions, Padilla points out that there are problems in the supply chain and problems in the health care infrastructure, but what has made global epidemics happen so easily is that “we are changing the world around us.” She explains that among these changes are the increasing population and environmental degradation, but one of the main shifts is that there are more people living in close proximity to animals, noting that “this allows viruses to make the leap that they were not able to before.”

On top of that, Padilla highlights, “We haven’t been able to recognize new viruses when they start because we lack the infrastructure to do so. And one of the biggest lessons from the coronavirus pandemic in particular is that what we also need to work on is health equity because that protects people from disease and also helps us tackle the emergence of new cases.”

She adds that often, when “people come in and show symptoms of fever, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, they are just given an experimental treatment for malaria, and they are sent back home.”

She explains that “there is no laboratory ability to confirm whether this is a new infection.” Unfortunately, Padilla believes, “we’ll have to go through this a few more times before we realize that’s what it takes.”

Padilla concludes by saying that nuclear war, like global pandemics, poses a major threat to our societies, and thus to national security. When asked about the challenge of how to mitigate these crises, she indicated that “whether it is nuclear wars or epidemics… these are existential crises… and everyone suffers from the same problem.”

(dpa)