Why Africa – and the world – remain dangerously unprepared for the next pandemic

As the news spread about the outbreak of Ebola in mid-May 2026, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a report about pandemics. The title was: A World on the Edge: Priorities for a Pandemic-Resilient Future.

The document was prepared by the WHO’s Global Preparedness Monitoring Board. It sets out why the world isn’t better prepared for pandemics a decade after Ebola exposed dangerous gaps. And six years after COVID-19 turned those gaps into a global catastrophe.

It adds that investment in pandemic preparedness has not kept pace with the rising risk of pandemics.

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