Global pandemic model expanded

AIR Worldwide said on Monday that it has expanded its Global Pandemic Model to include additional diseases.

The model now includes bacterial and viral diseases, in addition to previously modeled influenza, coronaviruses, and filoviruses. The AIR Global Pandemic Model update includes the addition of two pathogens from the Bunyaviridae viral family, Rift Valley fever virus and Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus, Lassa (hemorrhagic) fever from the Arenaviridae viral family, and bacterial-pathogens-associated cholera (Vibrio cholera), plague (Yersinia pestis), and meningococcal meningitis (Neisseria meningitidis). AIR models the impact to 24,000 municipalities worldwide, AIR Worldwide said in a statement.

Additionally, AIR will collaborate with the World Bank on the launch of the Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility. A global financing mechanism designed to protect the world against deadly pandemics. In the case of an outbreak it would release funds quickly to countries and qualified international responding agencies, according to the statement.

“Modeling plays a crucial role in developing a facility such as the PEF. Emerging infectious diseases pose some of the biggest threats to the life and health of people around the globe, and AIR models can help organizations anticipate the drivers of mortality and morbidity risk to facilitate optimal risk management, risk transfer, and risk mitigation decisions to help them better prepare financially and, more important, on a humanitarian level,” Priya Basu, manager, development finance, World Bank said in the statement.