全球流行病应对和动员（GERM）团队介绍 | 盖茨笔记

At the beginning of the movie Outbreak, there’s a scene where three government virologists arrive by helicopter at a remote village. Most of the village has recently died from Ebola-like symptoms. Wearing protective moon suits while triumphant music plays in the background, our heroes immediately get to work trying to contain the threat before it hurts anyone else. It’s an inspiring scene.

在电影《极度恐慌》的开头，有这样一个场景：三位政府派来的病毒学家乘坐直升机抵达一个偏远的村庄。村庄里的大部分人都因出现类似埃博拉的症状而死亡。伴随着凯歌，我们的英雄们穿着登月服样式的防护服，即刻展开抗疫行动，试图在病毒威胁到其他人之前将其控制。这是一个鼓舞人心的场景。

Unfortunately, it’s pure Hollywood fiction.

可惜，这纯粹只是个好莱坞式的故事。

A full-time team like this doesn’t exist in real life—yet. I’m hoping this changes soon, because it is one of the most important things we can do to prevent the next pandemic.

像这样的全职团队在现实生活中并不存在——至少目前还没有。我希望这种情况能尽快得到改变，因为想要阻止下一次大流行病，这是我们所能做的最重要的事情之一。

Today, there are many organizations that work hard to respond to a major epidemic, but their efforts are largely dependent on volunteers. The best known is the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, or GOARN, which does heroic work but doesn’t have the staffing, funding, or global mandate to tackle every threat.

如今，许多组织积极致力于应对某种重大流行病，但他们的努力在很大程度上依靠志愿者。其中，最知名的是全球疫情警报和反应网络（GOARN），该组织所做的工作英勇而伟大，但他们缺少人员、资金或全球授权来应对每一次威胁。

We need a permanent organization of experts who are fully paid and prepared to mount a coordinated response to a dangerous outbreak at any time. In my book, I propose that we call this group the GERM—Global Epidemic Response and Mobilization—team.

我们需要一个由专家组成的常设组织，专家们有全职工资，随时准备对危险的疫情暴发作出协调应对。在我的书中，我建议称这个团队为GERM——全球流行病应对和动员团队。

The GERM team would be made up of people from all over the world who have a wide range of expertise: epidemiology, genetics, data systems, diplomacy, rapid response, logistics, computer modeling, communications, and more. When they aren’t actively working in the field, most of them would call individual countries’ public health agencies home base, though some would sit in the WHO’s regional offices and at its headquarters in Geneva. (I talked about GERM at length in my TED talk last month.)

GERM团队将由来自世界各地的专家组成，他们拥有广泛的专业知识：流行病学、遗传学、数据系统、外交、快速反应、物流、计算机建模、通信等等。没有现场工作时，他们中的大多数人会到各个国家的公共卫生机构工作，也有一些人会在世界卫生组织的区域办事处和日内瓦总部工作。(我在四月份的TED演讲中详细谈论了GERM。）

It's important that GERM have a diverse workforce. The team is going to serve the entire world—it only makes sense that its members reflect the experiences and backgrounds of the people they’re going to work with. Ideally, GERM would have a high number of local experts from countries at a higher risk of outbreak, and outsiders would only show up when necessary and when the in-country team requests help.

GERM应有一支多元化的团队，这一点很重要。这一团队将为全球服务——团队成员应体现其合作方的经验和背景，这样才有意义。理想情况下，GERM会拥有较多来自传染病暴发风险较高国家的专家，而其他地区的成员只有在必要以及其国内团队请求帮助时才会出现。

Here’s how a GERM response would work: The team’s disease monitoring experts would look for potential outbreaks. Once it spots one, GERM should have the ability to declare an outbreak and work with national governments and the World Bank to raise money for the response very quickly. Product-development experts would advise governments and companies on the highest-priority drugs and vaccines. People who understand computer modeling would coordinate the work of modelers around the world. And the team would help create and coordinate responses, such as how and when to implement border closures and recommend mask use.

GERM的应对方式如下：团队中的疾病监测专家将寻找潜在的疫情暴发。一旦发现风险点，GERM应具备宣布疫情暴发的能力，并与各国政府和世界银行合作，迅速筹集应对资金。产品研发专家将向政府和企业建议最值得优先考虑的药物和疫苗。了解计算机建模的专家将协调统筹世界各地建模人员的工作。GERM团队将帮助建立和协调应对措施，例如如何以及何时实施边境封锁以及建议使用口罩等。

But GERM’s response to an active outbreak is only one part of their work.

但是，应对活跃疫情暴发仅仅是GERM工作的一部分。

The team’s most important job is helping to run outbreak response exercises that test whether the world is ready for the next major outbreak. Militaries regularly run war games to evaluate their readiness—we should do the same with disease threats. In most countries, these exercises can be run by local public health and military leaders, with GERM acting as an advisor and reviewer. For some low-income countries, the world should invest in building this capacity and lend resources as needed.

该团队最重要的工作是帮助开展疫情应对演习，以测试世界是否为下一次重大疫情暴发做好了准备。军队会定期进行军事演习来评估他们的战备状况——我们也应该如此对待疾病威胁。在大多数国家，这些演习可以由当地公共卫生和军队领导人组织，GERM可担任顾问和评估人员。国际社会应该对低收入国家进行投资以帮助其建立这种能力，并根据需要向其提供资源。

You can learn more about what these germ games would look like by reading chapter 7 of How to Prevent the Next Pandemic.

你可以通过阅读《如何预防下一次大流行》的第7章来了解更多关于“病毒演练”的内容。

The GERM team would also be responsible for developing a checklist for pandemic preparedness, similar to the ones that airplane pilots follow before every takeoff and many surgeons now use during an operation. A checklist sounds like such an obvious tool, but very few places had a plan like this in place when COVID hit. A GERM-developed checklist could be used anywhere and help make sure that governments are ready with an efficient and effective response.

GERM团队还将负责制定一份检查清单来评估大流行病的准备情况，类似于飞行员在每次起飞前、以及许多外科医生在手术中使用的检查单。检查单听起来像是一种显而易见的工具，但在新冠暴发之时，很少有地方有这样的规划。由GERM开发的检查单可以在任何地方使用，有助于确保各国政府通过高效且有效的应对措施做好准备。

But GERM’s impact won’t be limited to stopping pandemics. The group will improve overall health around the world, especially in the poorest countries.

但GERM的影响力并不仅限于阻止大流行病。该团队还将改善世界各地的整体卫生状况，特别是在最贫穷的国家。

Emerging diseases will always be their top priority, but when there isn’t an active pandemic threat, the team will keep their skills sharp by helping out with deadly diseases like polio and malaria. For example, they could work alongside public health workers in Nigeria to help distribute millions of doses of the oral polio vaccine every year to keep the country polio-free. This would both save a lot of kids from needless suffering and help the GERM team build relationships with communities they will need if an outbreak strikes. Now that’s what I call getting your money’s worth!

新发疾病将始终是他们的首要任务，但在没有活跃的大流行病威胁时，该团队将通过帮助应对脊髓灰质炎和疟疾等致命疾病来保持其实力。比如，他们可以与尼日利亚的公共卫生人员合作，帮助分发每年数百万剂的口服脊髓灰质炎疫苗，以保持该国的无脊灰状态。这既可以保护很多孩子免受不必要的痛苦，也可以帮助GERM团队与社区建立联系，以便在社区遭遇疫情暴发时提供帮助。这就是我所说的物有所值！

Running GERM will cost the world around $1 billion a year to cover salaries for the force of 3,000 people we’d need, plus equipment, travel, and other expenses—money that would come from governments. The work would be coordinated by the WHO, the only group that can give it global credibility, and it needs to be accountable to the public.

运作GERM每年将花费总计约10亿美元，以用于支付团队所需的3000位工作人员的工资，以及设备、差旅和其他费用——这部分费用将由政府承担。这项工作将由世界卫生组织（WHO）协调，它是唯一能够赋予GERM全球公信力的组织，而GERM需要对公众负责。

When Hollywood gets something wrong, the result is usually pretty silly and unrealistic. But movies like Outbreak nailed it when they imagined a global disease-fighting team who is ready to respond to a crisis on a moment’s notice. If we’re going to make sure that COVID-19 is the last pandemic, we need the GERM team.

有时好莱坞会制造一些子虚乌有的情节，结果常常是相当愚蠢且不切实际的。但像《极度恐慌》这样的电影并非是异想天开，他们创造出了一个抗击疾病的全球团队，这个团队随时待命以应对危机。如果我们想要确保新冠成为最后一次大流行病，我们需要GERM团队。