Speech by Commissioner Lahbib at the G20 High Level Independent Panel on Financing Pandemic Preparedness and Response

In June, I was in Bunia, at the epicentre of the Ebola outbreak. I met nurses, doctors, and local health workers fighting the virus on the front line. They knew what to do. The expertise was there.

But one thing struck me: in an outbreak, knowing what to do is not enough. You have to do it fast enough. A diagnostic test arriving a week late does not save lives. A vaccine developed too slowly cannot stop the virus from spreading. And if communities do not trust the people trying to help them, even the best medical tools may never reach the people who need them.

So the question is not if the next serious threat will emerge, but when. The real question is: will the systems we have built move faster than the threat when we do not have all the evidence, when political attention is divided, and when every day of delay narrows our options and does more damage.

We have spent years beefing up surveillance, research and development, our manufacturing capacity, and coordination. Now those investments need to work as one, like a well-tuned machine, and to move fast when it is needed most.

As Dr Kaseya often reminds us, Africa has the expertise, the tools, and the capacity to lead an effective response. The challenge is making sure those tools are available where they are needed, when they are needed.  And communities need to trust the people and systems delivering them.

That is why we moved quickly with our African partners, delivering humanitarian assistance and medical equipment to the region. We provided nearly €500 million, combining emergency assistance with longer-term investment in health security, preparedness, vaccines, and treatments. Eleven Humanitarian Air Bridge operations delivered critical supplies directly to the region.

But more must be done, together. Yesterday at the G20 meeting of foreign affairs ministers, we discussed how the international community can scale up its response.