THROUGHOUT the Covid-19 crisis, governments worldwide have appropriately prioritised strong frontline pandemic response services, ensuring rapid access to help for those who contract the virus.
Months of isolation, physical distancing, limited social interaction and the wearing of face masks are all taking a toll yet to be fully realised. We await with concern the long-term personal and socio-economic effects of, for example, moving so many educational and business activities online.
Governments are scrambling to develop economic stimulus packages — wage subsidies, tax exemptions and even cash transfers. Combined with the reduction in economic growth, these will result in a massive debt increase, creating a different set of challenges for the future.
Meanwhile, the environment is often an afterthought. In fact, it should be a top priority.
According to a recent report from the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, Covid-19 is at least the sixth global health pandemic since the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918.
The emergence of Covid-19 has been entirely driven by human activities. And it is estimated that another 1.7 million currently 'undiscovered' viruses exist in mammals and birds, 850,000 of which could infect people.
According to lead author, Dr Peter Daszak, a disease ecologist who has spent years studying coronavirus transmission in China and Southeast Asia, emerging diseases such as swine flu, SARS, Ebola, and the Nipah virus (which devastated Malaysia in 1999) originate largely through land-use change and human encroachment on wildlife habitat.
Supported by 22 experts, the report says future pandemics "will emerge more often, spread more rapidly, do more damage to the world economy and kill more people than Covid-19 unless there is a transformative change in the global approach to dealing with infectious diseases". They warn that escaping "the era of pandemics" is possible but "requires a seismic shift in approach from reaction to prevention".
The report calls for "a high-level intergovernmental council on pandemic prevention to provide decision-makers with the best science and evidence on emerging diseases; predict high-risk areas; evaluate the economic impact of potential pandemics and to highlight research gaps".
Such a council could also coordinate the design of a global monitoring framework and facilitate the setting of mutually agreed international goals or targets, with clear benefits for people, animals and the environment.
The prototype of such a council may have already been established. By coincidence it was announced last week that an international task force under the ambit of The Lancet Covid-19 Commission was being formed. It is to be led by Daszak and includes Academy of Sciences Malaysia's senior fellow, Prof Lam Sai Kit — a leader in emerging viral infections, who was also central to the discovery of the Nipah virus.
Indeed, could there be a more dramatic illustration of the importance of evidence-informed policymaking than the Covid-19 pandemic crisis, estimated to result in a global economic blow of up to US$16 trillion by the end of next year?
It is a privilege, therefore, to announce that the International Network for Government Science Advice (Ingsa) is launching a new structure this week to facilitate senior-level scientific information sharing and collaboration within the Asean region.
The Asean Science Advice Network (Asean-SAN) will structure and strengthen direct evidence-to-policymaking pathways, particularly in areas related to the world's 17 United Nations-brokered Sustainable Development Goals.
Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam are the five initial Asean-SAN members, which we hope to expand to all 10 Asean member states.
Ingsa was founded six years ago by some of the world's leading academics and practitioners in the emerging field of science advice to government. Malaysia and over 40 other countries from every world region, together with representatives of key international organisations, proudly convened to inaugurate Ingsa in 2014 under the chairmanship of Sir Peter Gluckman, the then science adviser to New Zealand's prime minister.
Ingsa has proven to be a valuable platform promoting collaborative exchanges on policy, capacity building and research. Ingsa organises workshops and conferences while developing a growing catalogue of tools and guidance.
By enhancing the global science-policy interface, the network facilitates policy formation informed by science at every government level from sub-national to national and international.
Asean-SAN will focus on how scientific evidence is being used in Covid-19-related policymaking, for example, in areas of health, socioeconomics and the environment, and in the deployment of pandemic recovery efforts to meet the important goal of "building back better" and shaping a "new normal".
The writer is a senior fellow of the Academy of Sciences Malaysia, and the Founding Chairman of AseanSAN. He was also the founding Chair of IPBES
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times
