Global health. The current scenario and future perspectives

62 Therefore, the academia can and should compare experiences with their successes and failures in various national and regional context to contribute from a global health perspective. Due to the nature of their work, as mentioned earlier, academic institutions tend to be part of regional and global networks that offer an effective means to create solidarity for cooperation and to influence governments and multilateral institutions for better management of current and future pandemics and non-pandemic diseases, as well as their consequences. In a recent interview with Howard Bauchner, editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Prof. Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (Bauchner, 2021), who himself was infected by the virus, highlighted the issue of inequality in vaccine distribution worldwide, where high-income countries obtain vaccines for two or three times the size of their population, while low- income countries are only now gaining access to vaccines far below their needs. Dr. Piot makes the radical statement that the “attitude of wealthy countries is as problematic as the continued emergence of new variants of the virus” and appropriately calls on academic institutions to become critical and accountable in the arena of global health at national, regional and global level. The role of academic institutions in Global Health is widely known and recognized in Chile, the Americas and the world. Academicians from these institutions are constantly sought by the media and invited, though not always heard, to participate in expert panels of various natures. Therefore, it is not necessary to dwell on their performance during the pandemic, but rather to identify, as previously mentioned, the lessons learned and possible post-pandemic scenarios that will undoubtedly challenge institutions dedicated to the study and practice of Global Health. In the coming months and years, the role of the academia in addressing various issues related to Global Health, including the Covid-19 pandemic, will be crucial in identifying, characterizing, objectively measuring and disseminating the lessons learned. Similarly, it is foreseeable that the field of Global Health studies will include new or reformed content in its teaching, research and engagement with the community. New forms of teaching, research through innovation, the growing development of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches to address old and new problems, globalization and internationalization of university relationships, not to mention the communication revolution, have given rise to new scenarios and paradigms. This implies embracing profound changes in the way our universities operate and their institutional framework, a task that needs to be addressed without delay.