This publication was produced with PAX sapiens’ technical and/or funding support as part of the PAX sapiens Global Pandemic Prevention program’s Pandemic Risk Outlook Initiative.
National Academy of Medicine Perspective — “The Imperative of a Global Pandemic Risk Assessment Framework”
Victor J. Dzau, Maria de Lourdes Oliveira Aguiar, & Joy Phumaphi (June 2025)
Excerpt: In just two decades, the world has faced a relentless barrage of deadly infectious disease outbreaks— SARS in 2002, H1N1 in 2009, Ebola in 2014, Zika in 2016, and COVID-19 in 2020. Each crisis has cost lives, destabilized economies, and exposed vulnerabilities in global health systems. The COVID-19 pandemic alone resulted in over 15 million excess deaths and an estimated $16 trillion in economic losses (Cutler and Summers, 2020). Yet, despite these staggering costs, the world remains dangerously unprepared for the next pandemic. To address this critical gap, the United Nations Foundation (UN Foundation), in collaboration with the US National Academy of Medicine (NAM), Fundação Oswaldo Cruz (Fiocruz), and the Global
Pandemic Monitoring Board (GPMB)—with support from Pax Sapiens and the Skoll Foundation— hosted a workshop in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on October 28−29, 2024.
