New York, Sept. 19 -- Despite efforts to break the global cycle of panic and neglect seen throughout multiple disease outbreaks, the UN health agency chief said on Friday that the new coronavirus has shown that the world was "woefully under prepared".

Although the World Health Organization (WHO) and World Bank set up the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB) two years ago to break the cycle, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a media press briefing that "reviews and reports are only as good as the recommendations that are implemented".

"COVID-19 has shown that collectively, the world was woefully under prepared", he stated.

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Since the turn of the millennium, SARS, MERS, H1N1, Zika and Ebola have all demon...