90-Second Read: Ebola, Hantavirus… how eroding global health cooperation could threaten worse crises ahead

The recent Ebola and Hantavirus outbreaks, respectively in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, and on a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean, remind us that the next health crisis is never far away. They also illustrate the World Health Organization's key role in global coordination and the importance of international cooperation for more effective responses. But some experts argue that weaker cooperation and aid cuts will ultimately help the world become more prepared to tackle health crises. In January, the US, which was the WHO's biggest funder, formally completed its exit from the global health agency.

While not considered as a high-capacity country, during the pandemic, Ghana managed to act more effectively than expected, thanks to residual capacity acquired through cross-border collaboration and experiences with past health crises. Dismantling global health cooperation and reducing aid will not advance any of these factors. While it is still possible to revert the dismantling of global health cooperation and shrinking aid, we must prioritize a long-term strategy over short-term political considerations. Yet the very conditions that would allow for a timely and effective alert and response are eroding.

Hence, besides direct aid cuts in health, core sectors for public health provision have also been hit hard. Weaker cooperation and aid cuts risk reducing institutional quality and international cooperation, the two key factors for better pandemic responses in the Global South. In these countries, political leaders used the pandemic to consolidate authoritarian power by further repressing political opposition, manipulating mortality data, or denying the crisis outright, with deleterious public health outcomes. Rather, they are likely to erode preparedness for health crises.

Lessons from how Global South countries responded to COVID-19 tell us that a combination of institutional quality and international cooperation are crucial for successful crisis response. International cooperation, in turn, facilitated cross-border coordination and allowed countries to share resources and expertise, improving domestic ability to respond to the pandemic beyond what states could do on their own. Instead of increasing resilience, these trends are thus more likely to undermine preparedness for future health emergencies.