The coronavirus can be a serious issue for countries with low access to healthcare and inadequate prevention measures.

Research from the Nuclear Threat Initiative, the John Hopkins Center for Health Security, and The Economist Intelligence Unit assessed how prepared 195 countries are for a major epidemic based on six health categories.

The report found that overall, no country is prepared for a pandemic, but some countries are more ready than others.

Among the lowest-scoring countries were Algeria, where there are already 20 confirmed cases of coronavirus.

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Some countries may be less equipped than others to handle a massive disease outbreak like the novel coronavirus sweeping around the world.

The coronavirus has spread to over 145 countries with over 169,000 cases and over 6,500 deaths. Although some countries have implemented screenings at airports, expanded their testing facilities, and implemented other health measures and precautions, no country is fully prepared for a pandemic, according to recent research.

In a 2019 report, researchers from the Nuclear Threat Initiative, the John Hopkins Center for Health Security, and The Economist Intelligence Unit created a Global Health Security Index to assess the health security of 195 countries. The report illustrates how prepared a country will be if an infectious disease outbreak, like the ongoing coronavirus epidemic, or other biological catastrophe happens. Unfortunately, some countries may be even more at risk than others.

Using open-source resources and data about each country, the researchers developed a health security score from 0 to 100, where 100 means a country is completely prepared for an outbreak.

The overall Global Health Security Index of each country was calculated from six categories: prevention of pathogens and toxins, early detection and reporting for pandemics, rapid response to pandemics, strong health system, compliance with international norms, and risk environment and vulnerability to biological threats.

Among those six categories, the overall lowest-scoring was strong health systems, which had a global average score of just 26.4. The overall highest-scoring category was risk environment and vulnerability to biological threats, which had a global average score of 55.0. That is, even the highest-scoring category on average still did not receive particularly high marks, suggesting that most countries are not fully prepared for a widespread disease outbreak.

The global average score for the full Health Security Index was only 40.2 out of 100, again suggesting a broad lack of preparedness.

The report categorized countries with scores below or equal to 33.3 as least prepared, and 72 countries fell into this category.

Based on the overall Global Health Security scores, Algeria, which has an overall score of 23.6, and Iraq, which has an overall score of 25.8, are two of the "least prepared" countries for a pandemic. Those countries are among those that already have confirmed cases of the coronavirus.

Algeria has 48 cases of coronavirus, four deaths, and 12 recoveries, while Iraq has 124 cases, 10 deaths and 26 recoveries. According to the health measures from the Global Health Security Index report, both countries suffer from poor communication with healthcare workers during a public health emergency and poor infection control practices and availability of equipment.

The following are the 24 countries that are least prepared to combat a major disease outbreak according to the report, along with their Global Health Security Index scores, their overall rank out of the 195 countries included in the research, and information drawn from the report. All of these countries had a Health Security Index score below 25.0.

This article has been updated with comments from the Office of the President of Palau.