We can win the war against infectious disease with data!

FII Institute: Sierra Leone Telegraph: 03 February 2022:

Health has become the world’s top priority. From the pandemic’s start to today’s Omicron variant, COVID-19’s impact on our planet has been unprecedented, with millions dying from catastrophic social and economic devastation.

Healthcare is one of the four main priorities of the FII Institute, a new global nonprofit foundation with an investment arm and one agenda: Impact on Humanity.

For this reason, we linked our healthcare strategy to Sustainable Development Goal 3: “To ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.” In this connection, our first paper called for the world to invest in tackling tuberculosis. TB is a disease that kills one person every 22 seconds.

According to the Global TB Vaccine Partnership leadership group, it will cost the world over $16 trillion by 2050 if it is not eradicated.

However, releasing a paper is not enough. Infectious diseases spread so fast was the lack of data.

Working with partners  Metabiota  and  Accenture , we developed the  Global Infectious Disease Index . The Index showcases the dual impact of the endemic disease burden and epidemic disease threats across 204 countries and territories. The endemic component displays the burden from five local endemic diseases—HIV/AIDS, malaria, TB, lower respiratory infections, and diarrheal diseases.

We decided to launch the Index at the Health Is Wealth roundtable, held on the sidelines of the 76th UNGA in New York, with world leaders and global CEOs in attendance. (Press release)

The Index tracks up to sixty pathogens, posing a potential global threat. It provides an objective, quantitative and comparable measure of infectious diseases, thereby enhancing the situational awareness to effectively prepare for, respond to and mitigate global health threats.

This tool captures endemic and epidemic diseases in near real-time. Our tool assesses the readiness and vulnerability of national healthcare systems. In this way, the data will inform policymakers worldwide about the gaps that need to be filled in to tackle endemic and emerging epidemic diseases.

Finally, as something unique to our platform, we have included the following six rankings: (1) number of medical staff, (2) number of hospital beds, (3) health expenditure, (4) population with basic immunization, (5) population with basic access to clean water, and (6) population with basic access to sanitation. These criteria help us better understand the gaps in each country’s readiness to prepare for and win the fight against infectious diseases.

We invite you to explore, share, highlight, and spread the word about GIDI. Together we can build a healthier and more equitable world that benefits all humanity.

You can view the FII Global Infectious Disease Index