Traditional Pandemic Plans Fail to Protect All People

As world leaders gather this week at the United Nations General Assembly, a new expert report finds that traditional approaches to pandemic preparedness leave millions of people exposed. The NUS-Lancet PRIME Commission, in which ISlobal participates, provides a practical blueprint to reverse that. 

The PRIME Commission, established by the National University of Singapore and The Lancet in 2023, brings together 41 experts from around the world and draws on work in 20 countries. The Commission found persistent gaps between what was promised, such as vaccines or social protection benefits, and what people could actually access when systems came under stress.

“What the PRIME Commission found is that people themselves aren’t ‘vulnerable’, but rather, that systems create vulnerability,” said Professor Helena Legido-Quigley, Co-Chair of the Commission and Professor at Imperial College.

“Pandemic preparedness cannot stop at having plans and capacities on paper. We need to make sure enabling systems can actually reach and protect people when they come under pressure,” said Alberto García-Basteiro, ISGlobal researcher and author of the Commission report.

From passive preparedness to 360° readiness

The report shifts the focus from pandemic preparedness, which asks whether plans and capacities exist, to pandemic readiness, which asks whether these work in a health emergency.

The Commission’s blueprint sets out six calls to action: move from preparedness to 360° readiness; institutionalise community participation; cooperate to save millions of lives; fix vulnerable systems, not “vulnerable people”; govern for trust; and commit to protection and accountability.

Vaccine access: millions of lives could be saved through a more equitable approach

The Commission modelled future pandemic scenarios and found that, in a hypothetical influenza A pandemic, rapid vaccine development could reduce deaths by 59%, from 58.5 million to 23.9 million. A more equitable allocation, based on population size rather than purchasing power, reduces global mortality by 64%, to 21·2 million deaths, equivalent to 37·3 million deaths averted, saving a further 2·7 million lives particular in middle-income countries. Measures to improve vaccine confidence would reduce deaths further still, by another 1.9m lives. 

A blueprint for Governments to protect all-of-society

The NUS-Lancet Commission provides a practical framework for governments to work with communities and create plans aimed at protecting everyone, for 360° pandemic readiness.

“The PRIME Commission brings an important perspective to pandemic preparedness by asking a simple but often overlooked question: will these plans actually work for everyone? Its focus on equity, community participation and trust is highly relevant to building stronger and more resilient health systems, by promoting a whole of society approach” said Elizabet Diago, Coordinator of the Preparedness Hub at ISGlobal. 

Reference

Calderón-Larrañaga S, Bakhti R, Etemadi M et al. The NUS–Lancet PRIME Commission: transforming pandemic readiness for equity. The Lancet, 2026.