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A group of Kiwi public health experts say an Aotearoa Centre for Disease Control (CDC) would significantly enhance national capability to address pandemic threats and collaborate with similar global efforts, in a briefing to the incoming Government.
New Zealand needs its own version of the CDC to help prepare the country for future pandemics which “have the potential to be far worse than Covid-19”, infectious diseases experts say.
The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) is an organisation set up to protect public health in the US, focussed on disease prevention and preparedness for new health threats.
In a briefing to the incoming Government, published on Thursday, the Public Health Communication Centre Aotearoa outlined why they say we need one too.
Professors Michael Baker, John Crump, and co-authors, say an ‘Aotearoa CDC’ would ensure New Zealand is better prepared for and able to respond to “inevitable” future pandemic threats.
A key responsibility would be building integrated surveillance systems, coordinated diagnostic laboratory services, and a suitably skilled and trained workforce.
The group, including epidemiologist Amanda Kvalsvig, evolutionary biologist and virologist Jemma Geoghegan, and public health academic Sir Collin Tukuitonga, said having our own CDC would also improve prevention and management of ongoing (endemic) infectious diseases.
”The potential benefits are large, long-term gains in population health, equity, and economic efficiency,” they say.
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The briefing, co-authored by Professor Michael Baker, says most countries are reviewing their core public healthscience infrastructure, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Baker said New Zealand had among the best Covid-19 responses in the world – showing that we can deliver a highly effective response to a global health emergency.
However, the briefing states this response was “far from perfect” when compared to “better prepared” countries, like Taiwan.
Had we had a CDC, our response might have been achieved with less disruption, Baker said.
“Our delivery was more costly and disruptive than it needed to be, and had expensive failures that more operational research might have helped to prevent. It also did not deliver equitable outcomes for Māori and Pacific Peoples,” Baker said.
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Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced a Royal Commission of Inquiry into how the Government handled the Covid-19 pandemic.
Baker said one of the reasons our response worked is we’re a “small network country”: teams of experts got together and donated their time to stand-up services like modelling and sequencing – “assembling a virtual CDC”.
With their proposal, “we’re saying, let’s capture that fantastic response, and make it more sustainable… institutionalising all that knowledge”, Baker said.
Already, New Zealand has much of the infectious disease science expertise, but “lacks coordinated and consistent investment” in essential infrastructure and workforce, the briefing states.
“We can do better with an Aotearoa CDC bringing our expertise together,” Baker said.
New Zealand’s lack of a specialised national infectious disease centre makes us an “outlier” internationally, the briefing states.
Many countries already have established CDC-type organisations that take responsibility for surveillance, capacity building, coordinated laboratory testing, outbreak response, and workforce training, they say, and Australia is in the process of doing so.
The authors state that the organisation of national infectious disease science capacity would “no doubt” be considered by the Covid-19 Royal Commission due to report in 2024; and that Government proposed establishing a ‘Pandemic Response Centre’ as part of investment in science infrastructure in Wellington.
They also acknowledged that New Zealand already has multiple initiatives that could support the model they’re proposing.
