Pandemics – a worrying global public health threat 

Pandemics are one of the greatest existential threats facing humanity today. Over the last few centuries, we’ve seen outbreaks and epidemics kill millions of people. From plague in the 14th century to influenza in the 20th century, infectious disease has been able to ravage society again and again. More recently, we’ve seen MERS-Co-V, SARS, Ebola, Zika and others viruses spreading across the world. The public health and global health measures that need to be put in place are rather obvious and yet these things are not being done on the scale that is required. Locally we need outbreak control measures that can engage with the epidemiology of zoonotic infections while at an international health level, we need countries to work with the World Health Organisation with the International Health Regulations (IHR). This video was sponsored by DCP3 (www.dcp-3.org).