The agency stressed the report does not map out every hazard, but is intended to help focus the minds of contingency planners across the health system, while scenarios outlined are severe but “plausible manifestations” of a risk – rather than predications.
These scenarios include a fall in vaccination rates among children that leads to 160,000 measles infections within a year; an extended heatwave that results in an additional 2,000 deaths; and a new outbreak of mpox clade 2b that overwhelmed sexual health services.
“It’s useful to have this type of overview of the various types of threats over the next five years and an understanding of where we’re at in terms of impact and how it might fall,” Prof Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, told the Telegraph, adding that countries including the United States have long published similar assessments.
But she warned the UK must also be on the lookout for the unexpected, as the only “certainty is that there’s always uncertainty about virtual evolution”. The risk assessment purposefully includes only known threats, and does not evaluate ‘Disease X’ – an as yet unknown pathogen with pandemic potential.
“As much as we can plan for the major risks, and it’s helpful to plan and prepare, we also have to have humility that sometimes we don’t have a crystal ball and simply don’t know what will be the main risk emerging,” Prof Sridhar said.
“We just have to build systems and institutions that can flexibly adapt to the specific outbreak or risk, and platforms which mean medical countermeasures can be rapidly created, approved and manufactured.”
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