On September 20, 2017, the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and the World Economic Forum (WEF) hosted a roundtable discussion on the current landscape of biological risks presented by technology advancement in the context of the Fourth
Industrial Revolution
Fast forward 3 years and in January 2020, NTI and the World Economic Forum released a report called “Biosecurity Innovation and Risk Reduction: A Global Framework for Accessible, Safe and Secure DNA Synthesis”
https://www.nti.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Biosecurity_Innovation_and_Risk_Reduction.pdf
From the World Economic Forum press release they speak of
“Rapid advancements in commercially available DNA synthesis technologies – used for example to artificially create gene sequences for clinical diagnosis and treatment – pose growing risks, with the potential to cause a catastrophic biological security threat if accidentally or deliberately misused”
https://www.nti.org/news/nti-and-world-economic-forum-release-new-report-dna-synthesis-technologies/
Now that we’ve established who is funding these reports let’s have a closer look at the 2021 report itself which predicted the Monkeypox outbreak (and yes the exact date is predicted in the document)
https://www.nti.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/NTI_Paper_BIO-TTX_Final.pdf
On Page 6 of the 36 page report in the Executive Summary it says
“The exercise scenario portrayed a deadly, global pandemic involving an unusual strain of monkeypox virus that emerged in the fictional nation of Brinia and spread globally over 18 months. Ultimately, the exercise scenario revealed that the initial outbreak was caused by a terrorist attack using a pathogen engineered in a laboratory with inadequate biosafety and biosecurity provisions and weak oversight. By the end of the exercise, the fictional pandemic resulted in more than three billion cases and 270 million fatalities worldwide”
Discussion among exercise participants led to the following key findings:
Weak global detection, assessment, and warning of pandemic risks
Gaps in national-level preparedness.
Gaps in biological research governance
Insufficient financing of international preparedness for pandemics.
To address these findings, the authors developed the following 5 recommendations.
Bolster international systems for pandemic risk assessment, warning, and investigating outbreak origins
Develop and institute national-level triggers for early, proactive pandemic response
Establish an international entity dedicated to reducing emerging biological risks associated with rapid technology advances
Develop a catalytic global health security fund to accelerate pandemic preparedness capacity building in countries around the world
Establish a robust international process to tackle the challenge of supply chain resilience
What is especially interesting about these recommendations is the role the UN, WHO and Banks will have to play (all are mentioned in the report). This seems like a direct nod to the WHO Pandemic treaty which is being discussed at the World Health Assembly May 22-28.
Isn’t it interesting as well that the World Economic Forum 2022 meeting is also taking place from May 22-26.
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