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Several things must now happen. First, hospitals and health authorities in affected cities and regions must recognize that AIDS, malaria and TB are surging again. In the case of TB, case detection — which has been affected by hospital testing facilities being diverted for COVID-19 — needs to be resumed quickly. It is possible for testing facilities to be shared for the two diseases. Some hospitals in the Asia–Pacific region are using the same equipment to run COVID-19 tests in the morning and TB tests in the afternoon — or vice versa. It is also possible to coordinate COVID-19 testing with rapid diagnostic testing for HIV and malaria.

Second, researchers must continue to refine their models using more real-world data. If Pai is correct — that cases and deaths will be higher than the models predict — then the models need to be improved.

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Third, there is a need for public-information campaigns. Public, private and non-governmental organizations must alert people to the risks of rising levels of infectious diseases. Such campaigns will also go some way towards reassuring existing patients, as well as those who become unwell, that they need to seek — or continue — treatment.

Fourth, these campaigns cannot on their own keep surgeries and wards open, or equipment functioning. The resurgence of infectious diseases has created a greater demand for tests, treatments and research. All of these need more funding. In a June report, the Global Fund calculated that an additional US$28.5 billion is needed to ensure that HIV, TB and malaria programmes can continue to function, and that researchers can continue to develop common diagnostic tools — especially for TB and COVID-19. And this is just for the next 12 months.

The Global Fund is confident it can access $6 billion of this sum, on top of its annual spending, but it cannot raise the rest alone. Some of the fund’s largest international donors, such as the United Kingdom, are cutting back on science-aid funding, while at the same time prioritizing COVID-19 research and development.

If the usual channels for fundraising seem unlikely to deliver, alternative approaches should be tried, such as public events at which governments, companies and philanthropic organizations are invited to make funding pledges. The governments of richer countries do donate at such events, as seen in May, when a live COVID-19 donor conference organized by the European Union received €6.15 billion (US$7.2 billion) in pledges.

COVID-19 has turned the clock back years, if not decades, in the fight against infectious diseases. It is, of course, imperative that all measures possible are taken to protect people from coronavirus and to treat those who have become sick. But saving people from one infectious disease only to have them die of another is the last thing anyone wants.