Public Health Association of Australia / Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases Media Release
“We are grossly unprepared for the next pandemic” – Health experts reflect five years after WHO COVID-19 pandemic declaration
11 March 2025: Five years to the day since the World Health Organisation declared COVID-19 a pandemic, leading public health and infectious disease experts have expressed grave concerns that Australia isn’t prepared for the next health emergency.
Experts from the Public Health Association of Australia and Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases have united today on the anniversary of the WHO’s declaration and ahead of the 2025 Federal Election to encourage all political parties to commit to investing in public health, including establishing a permanent Australian Centre for Disease Control (CDC).
Adjunct Professor Terry Slevin, CEO, Public Health Association of Australia, says that the WHO’s official declaration of pandemic on 11 March 2020 was a pivotal moment in world history that changed daily life for every person in Australia.
“The start of the COVID-19 pandemic was an unprecedented worldwide event that affected all of us. For many of us it was a stressful, dark and uncertain time, and it’s no surprise that five years on many Australians want to move on. Although overall Australia did well, we can’t afford to forget the challenges we faced and lessons we learnt. Many fear we are less, not more prepared for a similar outbreak should it occur now.”
During the 2022 election campaign Labor leader Anthony Albanese promised to establish a permanent Australian CDC to help Australia prepare for future pandemics. It would provide a central source of information and expert advice, as well as helping tackle other health challenges.
While public health experts have welcomed the Albanese Government’s establishment of an interim CDC, the body isn’t currently expected to be permanently launched until 1 January 2026. With an election looming, experts are seeking commitments from all sides of politics to enhance our pandemic preparedness.
“Five years on from the pandemic declaration, Australians would expect that we should be better prepared for the next threat.
“In the lead up to COVID-19, we had SARS, swine flu and MERS. Now we have avian influenza, Mpox, and Japanese encephalitis.
“It’s a matter of when, not if, the next health emergency will occur. It is vital that we move to a permanent and properly resourced CDC as soon as possible,” says Professor Allen Cheng AC, Professor of Infectious Diseases at Monash University.
Professor Joseph Doyle, President, Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases is also calling for more work now to prepare for future pandemics.
“As a nation, we have failed to fully capitalise on lessons learned during the last pandemic and build institutions to lead public health responses in future.
“We need to ensure the interim CDC transforms into a well-resourced, transparently governed, expert and evidence-based permanent CDC to prepare us for emerging threats, and ongoing public health challenges that occur every day.”
Adjunct Professor Terry Slevin added, “The interim Centre for Disease Control is the first step towards the roadmap outlined in the COVID-19 Response Inquiry report. Already some things are better. Its new OneHealth division is working closely across governments to monitor avian influenza, and they have an ambitious plan for surveillance data. But it will take a lot more to strengthen systems to respond more coherently to the next pandemic.
“We are very concerned that in the past five years we have seen both Federal and State Governments move resources away from vital public health services that we relied on during the pandemic’s peak. Across the country, decisionmakers are putting more money into acute care and hospitals and away from initiatives that protect the health and wellbeing of our communities. Without a well-resourced public and preventive health sector, who will we call on when the next outbreak occurs?”
Ahead of the Federal Election, the Public Health Association of Australia is calling for the next Federal Government to:
• Establish a permanent Australian Centre for Disease Control
• Invest in prevention to save lives and money
• Act on obesity to help more Australians maintain a healthy weight
• Invest in First Nations people’s health to close the gap
• Protect our health by acting on climate change
• Reform gambling so people lose less
• Introduce universal oral health care through Medicare
More information can be found at https://voteforpublichealth.com/
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Australia ran its last national pandemic drill the year the iPhone launched. Did that harm our coronavirus response?
By Dylan Welch and Alexandra Blucher
Australia was a world leader in pandemic preparation in the 2000s, and that work culminated in two huge national training programs — Exercise Cumpston in 2006 and Exercise Sustain in 2008.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-20/coronavirus-australia-ran-its-last-pandemic-exercise-in-2008/12157916
Of course we are. We are following the UN AGENDA 2030 global government as a solution.
Always a follower never a leader is Australia’s MO. The WHO is the leader. Its Pandemic Treaty will be our go to. WHO and pharma elites will tell us which vaccines we will have, how often they will be administered. They will set lockdown regimes. There will be severe penalties for non compliance and AI will be used to monitor compliance. Why haven’t Australian officials told Australians the truth?
If Y2K taught us anything, it’s that in order to be adequately prepared, we need to be willing to appear like we overreacted.
If social media has taught us anything, it’s that we are absolutely unwilling to do that anymore.
Another once in a century plandemic so soon, cool.
Pass the popcorn while I watch the political class and their mates in misinfo stream media try and steamroll the public again with coersive control tactics such as threats to employment for not taking a experimental mRNA concoction that has no long-term safety studies to back it up.
Too many people have woken up, they are not unprepared.
They got a good dose of smelling salts in 2020-24, thanks for that.
They see you PHAA people and your club of cons and will not have a bar of it.
The UN agenda 2030 is not global government. It is the sustainable development goals.
We resolve, between now and 2030, to end poverty and hunger everywhere; to combat inequalities within and among countries; to build peaceful, just and inclusive societies; to protect human rights and promote gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls; and to ensure the lasting protection of the planet and …
Being prepared for another pandemic isn’t an individual response. There needs to be national coordination to a response like any other emergency ie climate disasters, floods, fire, cyclones. There needs to be enough equipment to protect health and emergency workers. Being a nurse during the covid virus was a nightmare.Excessive working hours under extremely difficult circumstances. Public health is not just dealing with pandemics. Its about policy to assist with reductions in smoking unhealthy sugary drinks, Road safety. Australia is not always a follower. We were the first to introduce mandatory seat belts. The first in the world to introduce plain packing on cigarettes. We don’t invest enough in our researchers. The CSIRO has been gutted. Our health by highly processed foods. Investing in preventative measures now reduces costs in the future and not just monetary. Better quality of life.
Too many people who can’t afford to see a dentist. Long public waiting lists. Gambling advertising normalizing the behaviour for children. Gambling ruining relationships and causing hardship.
Only 1% of the health budget is for public health. Failing to invest in public health and enact policy reform will cost in the long run. Public hospitals already have excessive waitlists and overflowing emergency departments. Acute Healthcare costs much more in the long run. I will be voting with preventative care in mind, including public housing and an increase in jobseeker payments etc.
This could be funded if big business paid their taxes.As a nurse I paid more tax than eg Qantas last year. CEO’s make huge sums of money while we have people living in poverty in Australia.. Public health is about all the factors which allow people to live a good life. Just like the sustainable development goals.
One of the lessons that we learned, albeit quickly forgotten, is that viruses spread, quickly, and if we take a few minor precautions we can halt the spread almost as quickly, and protect those who are more likely to be adversely effected by what to many people is a minor irritation.
Wash your hands, cover your mouth went coughing and sneezing, stay at home if you are sick, wear a mask if you are unwell and need to be out in public. Vaccinate if that is your wont. All minor changes that make a huge difference.
For those who eschew vaccinations they are protected by those who vaccinate and they should be grateful that others take the spread of viruses seriously enough to not only protect themselves but also those who cannot be vaccinated and those who choose not to vaccinate.
People like Carman: MARCH 11, 2025 AT 5:37 PM, are lucky that they are in a country where they have the choice as to whether to protect themselves and others through vaccinations and other ways to slow the spread of viruses such as masks and distancing, or if they choose not to take up those protections, know that others will do so, so that she/he is also protected.
Pandemics come and go, some are serious and some are inconvenient but they are a fact of life, but a few minor changes in how we all act towards our own personal hygiene and how we interact with others is important and for some the difference between life and death.
One of the benefits to me from the pandemic is that I chose to be vaccinated, three or four of them in fact, and the result of that is that I have not had a viral, or bacterial, infection for coming up to 5 years, partly due to vaccination and partly due to many people still being aware that basic hygiene and consideration for your fellow human beings can be effective in cutting the transmission of viruses.
It takes more and more girding of the loins to dive into articles about pandemics, because I know there will be more and more ignorant, uneducated antivax bullshit spouted by those incapable of critical thinking.
That having been said,setting up a proper CDC is not something that can be done in a blink of the eye; it’s a complex process and making sure the result is truly effective and efficient takes time (sort of like developing vaccines).