Professor Colleen Aldous recently contributed a chapter to the book: COVID-19: Management and Responses, Lessons Learnt for the Future.
Her chapter titled: Evidence-Based Medicine, Critical Thinking and Meaningful Public Health Communication in a Rapidly Evolving Pandemic focuses on a humanitarian approach in Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) in the planning for any future pandemics.
Aldous is an accomplished scientist and esteemed academic who is determined to ensure that science is intermingled with humanitarian values. She is passionate about EBM and her contribution analyses a number of epidemics and pandemics that have occurred over the years whilst documenting the lessons learnt from the public health measures and global responses taken. She said, ‘Epidemics and pandemics involve disproportionate outbreaks of disease that elicit prompt efforts to contain spread and mitigate illness. History shows that such efforts are inevitably imbalanced and ill-informed by health leadership and other authorities, despite scientific knowledge being available.’
Aldous illustrated the shortcomings with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) initial response around the COVID-19 outbreak. She said, ‘China suppressed the initial rapid growth in SARS-like infections and took measures to destroy blood samples from people who were infected as the disease emerged. Severe action was taken against doctors and others who raised concerns, and measures were taken to suppress public concern. The WHO was quick to pander to China’s desire to control the narrative, specifically failing to acknowledge the evidence that was available on human-to-human transmission at a critical moment on 14 January 2020, deferring to China. Finally, they acknowledged an epidemic potential, and then declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30 January, and a pandemic on 11 March 2020. By that time, there were more than 118 000 cases in 114 countries, and 4 291 people had lost their lives despite the fact that it was patently obvious that a global spread was not only inevitable, but that a pandemic was already firmly entrenched.’
In the book, Aldous advocates for a permanent cadre of health security experts that are maintained by government for the prevention of, preparation for, and mitigation of health security risks. Such a cadre will consist of multidisciplinary professionals across the biomedical sciences, as well as the intelligence field to ensure that sound emerging scientific evidence informs the public health response.
The book can be purchased from Amazon.
Words: MaryAnn Francis
Photograph and image: Supplied
