Professor Sharon Lewin

In Ebola, I think there clearly is some issues around misunderstanding of what's needed to curtail an outbreak.

And we're seeing that with the anger from communities against the hospitals limiting what they can do with burials.

I doubt it's misinformation.

This is an issue of you've got to bring the community along with you.

And how you might do that in DRC is probably different to how we might do that in, you know, inner Melbourne or remote Australia.

But clearly there is a misunderstanding from the community about what's required.

So infectious diseases are always going to come and go.

Very few of them reach COVID levels, but it is always a possibility.

And we're seeing these new outbreaks, whether it's Ebola, Hantavirus, Avian flu, continuing to occur.

The second thing is that the science has really progressed.

And so there's no doubt that in many countries around the world, including Australia, there's

have made a commitment to invest in the science to make sure that we have better detection methods, better data systems.

It's largely what the new Australian CDC is working on.

But in the end, the science only matters when you can implement it.

And at the same time,

Since COVID, we've seen these other changes with, and we always do worry about outbreaks in settings with fragile governments that don't either have the funding, don't have the trust, or there's elements of conflict and war.

And that's a big driver here, as well as COVID having a lasting effect on people's

you know, trust in science and where they get their science and a big change in the environment around misinformation, social media, AI, et cetera.

That has had a very big impact on what we are able to do around the world, particularly in low and middle income countries.

So we really rely on the WHO to mobilise resources and assist, whether it's in personal protective equipment, whether it's in diagnostic capabilities, public health messaging.