The last five years saw a significant return of epidemic infectious disease, culminating in COVID-19. In our new post–COVID-19 world, how do we prevent future illnesses by expanding scientific and vaccine diplomacy and cooperation, especially to combat the problems that humans have brought on ourselves?

Modern diseases and viruses have been spurred anew by war and conflict as well as shifting poverty, urbanization, climate change, and a new troubling anti-science/anti-vaccination outlook. From such twenty-first-century forces, we have seen declines in previous global health gains, with sharp increases in vaccine-preventable and neglected diseases on the Arabian Peninsula, in Venezuela, in parts of Africa, and even on the Gulf Coast of the United States. In Preventing the Next Pandemic, international vaccine scientist and tropical disease and coronavirus expert Peter J. Hotez, MD, PhD, argues that we can—and must—rely on vaccine diplomacy to address this new world order in disease and global health. Detailing his years in the lab developing new vaccines, Hotez also recounts his travels around the world to shape vaccine partnerships with people in countries both rich and poor in an attempt to head off major health problems. Building on the legacy of Dr. Albert Sabin, who developed the oral polio vaccine with Soviet scientists at the height of the Cold War, he explains how he is still working to refresh and redirect vaccine diplomacy toward neglected and newly emerging diseases.

Hotez reveals how—during his Obama-era tenure as the US Science Envoy for the Middle East and North Africa, which coincided with both the rise in these geopolitical forces and climate change—he witnessed tropical infectious diseases and established vaccine partnerships that may still combat them up close. He explores why, since 2015, weve seen the decline of global cooperation and cohesion, to the detriment of those programs that are meant to benefit the most vulnerable people in the world. Unfortunately, Hotez asserts, these negative global events kick off a never-ending loop. Problems in a country may lead to disease outbreaks, but those outbreaks can lead to further problems—such as the impact of coronavirus on Chinas society and economy, which has been felt around the globe. Zeroing in on the sociopolitical and environmental factors that drive our most controversial and pressing global health concerns, Hotez proposes historically proven methods to soothe fraught international relations while preparing us for a safer, healthier future. He hammers home the importance of public engagement to communicate the urgency of embracing science during troubled times.

Touching on a range of disease, from leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis, and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) to COVID-19, Preventing the Next Pandemic has always been a timely goal, but it will be even more important in a COVID and post-COVID world.

Peter J. Hotez, MD, PhD, is a professor of pediatrics and molecular virology and microbiology and the founding dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, where he is also the codirector of the Texas Childrens Center for Vaccine Development. He is the author of Blue Marble Health: An Innovative Plan to Fight Diseases of the Poor amid Wealth and Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachels Autism: My Journey as a Vaccine Scientist, Pediatrician, and Autism Dad.

Preface
Chapter 1. A New Post-2015 Urgency
Chapter 2. A Cold War Legacy
Chapter 3. Vaccine Science Envoy
Chapter 4. Battling Diseases of the Anthropocene
Chapter 5. The Middle East Killing Fields
Chapter 6. Africas "Un-Wars"
Chapter 7. The Northern Triangle and Collapse of Venezuela
Chapter 8. Sorting It Out: Attributable Risks
Chapter 9. Global Health Security and the Rise in Anti-science
Chapter 10. Implementing Vaccine Diplomacy and the Rise of COVID-19
Chapter 11. The Broken Obelisk
Literature Cited
About the Author
Index

"Vaccines are one of humankinds greatest creations in both saving lives and creating diplomacy between nations, and there is likely no one in the world who can better teach us about both than Dr. Peter Hotez. The good doctor has spent his life in the lab developing lifesaving vaccines and traveling all over the world ensuring they are put to proper use. In this deeply researched and insightful work, Peter shows us how to see the world differently and offers a guide for shaping a healthier, safer future. This book could not be more timely in a COVID—and post-COVID—world. Hotez gives us equal doses of science-driven help and human-centered hope."

— Sanjay Gupta, MD, neurosurgeon and CNN Chief Medical Correspondent

"Peter J. Hotez describes the complex biological, environmental, and social issues that determine susceptibility to and the impact of current and emerging infectious diseases in developing countries, along with the challenges of developing and administering vaccines to prevent disease in these nations. There are few, if any, published books that describe the same type of comprehensive systematic analysis of vaccine design and populational coverage of vaccination required to achieve public health goals. Highly recommended."

— Rodney Hoff, DSc, MPH, University of Washington

"Our nations former science envoy and respected global health policy leader Peter Hotez highlights the ambitious yet achievable opportunity of eliminating catastrophic infectious and tropical diseases. His gripping story reminds us that preventing disease is good policy and great politics, in case you need an extra reason to save hundreds of millions of lives."

— Mehmet Oz, MD, Attending Physician, NY Presbyterian/Columbia

"This book is a love letter to science, diplomacy, and the human will to overcome seemingly unsurmountable challenges. This is a book only Peter Hotez—a renaissance man of modern vaccinology—could write."

— Saad B. Omer, Director, Yale Institute for Global Health

"[Preventing the Next Pandemic] takes the reader through the worlds of global health, diseases of the impoverished, and their diverse country contexts, into science diplomacy and a towards a vision for a healthier future."

— The Lancet