Maseru, Aug. 12 — Allegations taking rounds on social media about a possibility of a pandemic outbreak called SEERS in 2025 have been proven to be untrue.
John Hopkins Center for Health Security together with the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation conducted a Catastrophic Contagion, further clarifying that it was fictional.
The production was done in 2022, however, claims of a possible 2025 pandemic have re-emerged on social media triggering panic and conspiracy theories that include alleging that the American government is the source of the virus with the intention to wash off Africa.
“Most of us do not respond well if we face something that is rare and catastrophic. It’s almost like inoculating them. Exercises are a form of inoculation for emergencies,” This was Dr. Lim Poh Lian, Director of the High Level Isolation Unit of the National Centre for Infectious Diseases of Singapore, commenting on the Catastrophic Contagion’s website, explaining why such exercises are being done.
The simulation exercise was held in October 2022 in Brussels.
John Hopkins Center for Health Security also commented in a statement saying “The goal of the fictional exercise was to highlight gaps in pandemic preparedness and to generate ideas for initiatives that countries could take now to improve the world’s collective ability to save lives and livelihoods during future pandemics. The fictional outbreak depicted in the scenario was in no way predictive; rather, the pathogen in the exercise was imagined purely as an educational technique to help the participants contend with the types of policy dilemmas that are foreseeable during large-scale public health emergencies.”
