The research, which was published in a prestigious journal and will be presented at a major AIDS conference in Brazil, pushed back against traditional measures of pandemic preparedness."For decades the world judged how ready a country is for a pandemic by counting its laboratories, stockpiles and response plans," study co-author and economics Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz said."This research shows that this is not enough," he added in a statement. "High economic inequality can leave even wealthy, well-equipped nations dangerously exposed."The United States and United Kingdom topped pandemic preparedness indexes, yet during the Covid-19 pandemic both recorded significantly more cases and deaths than the global average.Brazil and South Africa, considered the most prepared countries in their regions, also fared particularly badly.However, countries with lower levels of inequality considered to be less prepared such as Vietnam, Mauritius, Ethiopia, Uruguay and Norway were significantly better off, the research said.
The US and Uk top pandemic preparedness indexes, yet both had more Covid cases and deaths than the global average © CHRISTIAN HARTMANN / POOL/AFP/File
The new paper, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found no association between a country's technical capacity -- for example labs to test for viruses or trained emergency healthcare workers -- and how well it handled the Covid and AIDS pandemics.However it found a clear and consistent link between a nation's level of economic inequality and how it performed during both crises.'Not inevitable'"The deeper the inequality in the country is, the deeper that pandemic is going to be," lead study author Matthew Kavanagh of Georgetown University in the US told AFP."We're not talking about reaching utopia -- we're talking about what would it look like for the whole world to reach the level of inequality of South Korea."Stiglitz said that "the encouraging news is that inequality is not inevitable -- it is the result of policy choices, and we know how to change them."The panel urged nations to consider "inequality-informed pandemic preparedness".
