5.4
SCIENTIFIC INNOVATION, RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY
Yasmine Belkaid, president, Institut Pasteur, Mario Santos Moreira, president, Pasteur Network, and Rebecca Grais, executive director, Pasteur Network
Science and solidarity: A new paradigm for global health In a world fractured by crisis and mistrust, science remains one of the few truly global connective threads. Sustained and decentralised collaboration can deliver the equity and preparedness needed to shape health breakthroughs I n a fragmented world, scientific communities remain one of the strongest bridges across
A FRACTURED RESPONSE Amid the devastation of Covid-19, there were moments of achievement: community resilience, decisive governments, regional leadership and, above all, extraordinary scientific cooperation that produced diagnostics and vaccines at record pace. Yet the same moment exposed unacceptable inequities. Access to health care, diagnostics and vaccines was deeply polarised, especially between the Global North and Global South. The world was reminded, once again, that while science can be global, solidarity is too often selective. This could have been a turning point. The success of cooperative science, combined with the urgency of equity, might have laid the foundation for a new paradigm of shared responsibility. Instead, other forces prevailed. The narrative of collective success was quickly drowned out by ideological agendas and disinformation. What could have united us instead deepened mistrust – an assault on science and a further weakening of multilateral cooperation.
countries, continents and societies. Every major advance in global health – vaccines, treatments, preventive measures – has been built on decades of collaboration that spanned borders. And every future response, whether to epidemics of hygiene-related diseases or to the next pandemic, will depend on the trust and cooperation already in place among scientists worldwide. The HIV/AIDS pandemic showed, with devastating clarity, how a slow-moving but relentless global health crisis could reshape societies, particularly in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Covid-19, by contrast, was the first acute global pandemic since 1918 – striking all countries at once, overwhelming systems simultaneously and disrupting every aspect of daily life. Together, HIV and Covid remind us that global threats take different forms, but they all demand the same foundation: science that is collaborative, inclusive and sustained over time.
Made with FlippingBook Annual report maker