Over three years ago, one of the world’s worst health disasters occurred. A new disease caused by a virus was passing from an animal host to humans. Today, there is no general consensus among the world’s virologist experts about its origin, but the leading theory is that this jump, or zoonotic disease, originated in a city in central China called Wuhan. The city, the capital of Hubei province, reported its first case of covid-19.

Like a fungus the size of a nucleus, the disease spread first to neighboring cities, then to neighboring countries, and soon spread all over the world. With more than 80 million cases, this new disease is transitioning from acute and explosive to chronic and perennial. The SARS-CoV-2 virus, a type of coronavirus, comfortably stays with us, even in the most remote places on earth, in a state of greatly reduced virulence.

Were we, as human beings, prepared for an event of this magnitude? More than 20 years ago, in Guangdong, China, an unknown virus caused a deadly illness that scientists called SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome). illness has occurred. Within months, the disease had spread to her 28 countries, infecting more than 8,000 people and killing about 800. Scientists around the world began desperately searching for a vaccine, but the virus’s high lethality and low contagiousness meant that the epidemic died down quickly and lacked political and financial support from wealthy countries and international organizations. The shortage has also weakened the search for a vaccine.

Rumors of war at the time were dismissed by the world’s scientific community, and the world was unprotected and unprepared for those who came to us twenty years later. From 800 deaths he increased to 7 million, and the mortality rate of those affected he increased more than 8,000 times. We weren’t prepared for him three years ago, and today we remain vulnerable to this type of event in the near future. A limited number of countries took this threat seriously and initiated structural reforms aimed at strengthening their health systems.

One of the most serious threats in the face of future pandemics is the absence of strengthened supranational institutions such as the World Health Organization. Declining public trust in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the World Health Organization (WHO), and pharmaceutical companies in general has already highlighted the need for reform. Without the participation and cooperation of civil society, it is impossible to initiate an effective response to events of this kind.

Imposing sanitary and biosafety measures, however burdensome, is not sustainable without the relevant public confidence. Another current weakness is the limited allocation of financial resources to strengthen and prepare global protection systems against infectious diseases with pandemic potential. Not surprisingly, national participation is strategic and essential in seeking this global protection.

The virus doesn’t know it’s in Nicaragua under a regime like Ortega, as we’ve experienced with this pandemic. Of course, it expands not only within Nicaragua, but by taking advantage of the inherent weaknesses that the country’s policies offer. Territory, but it extends to the territories of Costa Rica, Honduras and Salvador.

The virus does not recognize national borders, but it does recognize the weaknesses of each healthcare system. For this reason, strengthening the health system in the face of the coming pandemic must be adjusted. We need to strengthen the Central American region, not individual countries. The region has mechanisms that are currently stagnant, such as SICA, which can be used as a platform for joint regional initiatives that seek to strengthen us as a region. One of my biggest fears is that, so far, we have not implemented evaluation and reflection mechanisms for comprehensive discussion of the actions of countries and regions in the face of the pandemic. Not identifying the problem makes us even weaker and more vulnerable.