Health Minister Dr. Fahrettin Koca spoke at the opening of the “Symposium on Future Pandemics” organized by the Turkish Health Institutes (TÜSEB) at the main campus of the Ministry of Health.
In his speech, Minister Koca touched upon the COVID-19 pandemic which has become the global agenda in the last two and a half years and showed that the world is not actually ready enough for such outbreaks.
Expressing that the global epidemic has not yet come to an end even though the severe threat period has passed, Dr. Koca noted that the epidemics experienced throughout the history caused disappearance of many values of both human capital and civilization, and each time it brought about different traumas and fractures in societies.
Stating that scientific studies detect new human and animal pathogens every year, Dr. Koca added:
“Any of these could be the causative agent of the upcoming pandemic. Although it is not possible to predict when the next global epidemic will occur, history has taught us that it is inevitable. It is clear that planning should be done today in order to limit the human and financial losses that may occur as a result of the global epidemics that we will encounter in the future. The rapid response of the scientific community to the COVID-19 outbreak has demonstrated the critical importance of real-time access to data. It is frequently stated by world health authorities and leading organizations that we need global regulations to predict, detect and prevent the potential increase of tomorrow's diseases. In this context, there is a consensus on the need to take swift measures to protect health systems, economies and people's livelihoods in the face of emerging diseases.”
Emphasizing that there is a need for a global transformation in surveillance systems in order to have the chance to rapidly predict, detect and prevent the potential increase of tomorrow's diseases, Dr. Koca underlined the potential role of Türkiye in the joint mission to be created to reduce the burden of global diseases considering its successful fight against the COVID-19 epidemic, production of a domestic vaccine as well as production of the diagnosis kit and ventilator.
In the light of the experience gained by our country during the epidemic process, we aim to bring all the stakeholders of the issue together in order to determine the road map of our country, to make comprehensive evaluations, to ensure coordination and to determine strategies for future pandemics that would constitute a guarantee for the creation of solutions to the problems that our country will face in the future. “added Dr. Koca.
The probability of new pandemics is considered very high
Head of TUSEB Erhan Akdoğan, on the other hand, said that with the declaration of the Kovid-19 epidemic, the whole world entered a new era and the effects of this process still continue in social, economic and political terms.
Pointing out that Turkey has put up an effective fight in the epidemic process with its medical device infrastructure and vaccine studies, Akdoğan stated that one of the most important elements of this struggle is the digital health infrastructure.
Underlining that such factors as climate and environmental changes, urbanization and increasing international circulation pose new and dangerous epidemic risks, Akdoğan said, "It seems that the probability of new pandemics in the future is considered very high by the scientific authorities."
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