“The Importance of Public-Private Partnerships and Preparing for the Next Pandemic,” Kayla Zamanian Writes about Natasha Bilimoria’s Contributions to the Conversations in Global Health Class

Kayla Zamanian (SFS’23), medical humanities student, Science, Technology, and International Affairs (STIA) major with a Global Health concentration and French minor, writes about the role of public-private partnerships and the importance of health system strengthening as a way of preparing for future pandemics, based on “The Future of Global Public Health: A Conversation with Natasha Bilimoria“, an event hosted through Georgetown University’s Conversations in Global Health class, which invites global health professionals to Georgetown’s campus to engage in discussions regarding their career paths and expertise.

Based on that conversation, Kayla Zamanian cites Ms. Bilimoria’s praise of public-private partnerships (PPPs), emphasizing that the success of the PPPs she has seen in her personal experience “was tied to their willingness to ‘bring every stakeholder to the table.’ Furthermore, she highlighted the nuance of the private sector’s contributions, stating that although ‘everyone thought of the private sector as just another donor,’ over time, the global health community has come to realize that the private sector can offer apt expertise to help organizations like Gavi fill in any management or planning gaps”.

In regards to pandemic preparedness, “Ms. Bilimoria stated that although the term “health system strengthening” has been used for a long time, we are just now starting to see what happens when a country has weak systems in place—strong health systems are a necessary condition for strong pandemic preparedness plans”, “the COVID-19 pandemic revealed cracks in even the wealthiest countries’ health care systems and showed how important prevention, preparedness, and early investments are to our ability to respond to emerging global health threats”, Zamanian writes.