The 3P Framework -- A Comprehensive Approach to Coping with the Emerging
Infectious Disease Crisis
Abstract
The COVID19 pandemic is the latest example of the profound
socio-economic impact of the Emerging Infectious Disease (EID) crisis.
Current health security measures are based in a failed evolutionary
paradigm that presumes EID is rare and cannot be predicted because
emergence requires the prior evolution of novel genetic capacities for
colonizing a new host. Consequently, crisis response through Preparation
for previously-emerged diseases and Palliation following outbreaks have
been the only health security options, which have become unsustainably
expensive and unsuccessful. The Stockholm Paradigm is an alternative
evolutionary framework suggesting host changes are the result of
changing conditions that bring pathogens into contact with susceptible
hosts, with novel genetic variants arising in the new host after
infection. Host changes leading to EID can be predicted because
pre-existing capacities for colonizing new hosts are highly specific and
phylogenetically conservative. This makes EID Prevention through
limiting exposure to susceptible hosts possible. The DAMA (Document,
Assess, Monitor, Act) protocol is a policy extension of the SP that can
both prevent and mitigate EID by enhancing traditional efforts through
adding early warning signs and predicting transmission dynamics.
Prevention, Preparation and Palliation comprise the 3P framework, a
comprehensive plan for reducing the socio-economic impact of EID.