- The World Health Organization and world leaders have acknowledged the need to improve the response to the pandemic.
- Efforts are underway to finalize a pandemic agreement to establish guidelines for future pandemic responses.
- There are concerns that this will not affect countries that do not comply with the treaty.
After the coronavirus pandemic triggered once-unthinkable lockdowns, disrupted economies and killed millions of people, the World Health Organization and leaders around the world have vowed to do better in the future. He vowed to take action. Years later, countries are still struggling to come up with an agreed plan for how the world will respond to the next global pandemic.
The ninth and final round of talks involving governments, advocacy groups and others to finalize the Pandemic Agreement is scheduled to conclude on Friday. The agreement aims to provide guidelines for WHO’s 194 member states on how to prevent future pandemics and better share scarce resources. But experts warn there will be virtually no consequences for countries that don’t comply.
WHO member states have asked the UN health agency to oversee talks on a 2021 pandemic agreement. Envoys have been working long hours in recent weeks on drafting the agreement ahead of a self-imposed deadline for ratification at the WHO’s annual general meeting later this month. However, if there are deep rifts, it may fail.
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US Republican senators sent a letter to the Biden administration last week criticizing the draft, which focused on issues such as “shredding intellectual property rights” and “supercharging the WHO.” They urged Biden not to confirm.
A vial of the coronavirus vaccine is photographed at the Saidal factory in Constantine, Algeria, on September 29, 2021. The World Health Organization and world leaders vowed this after the coronavirus pandemic triggered once-unthinkable lockdowns, disrupted economies and killed millions of people. To make something better in the future. Years later, countries are still struggling to come up with an agreed plan for how the world will respond to the next global pandemic. (AP photo, file)
The Department of Health said it would only agree to a deal if it “strongly protects the UK’s national interests and respects national sovereignty”.
Many developing countries also say it is unfair that they are not able to provide virus samples that are expected to help develop vaccines and treatments.
“This pandemic agreement has very lofty goals, but it doesn’t take into account the political realities,” said Sarah Davis, a professor of international relations at Australia’s Griffith University.
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For example, the agreement seeks to address the disparity between COVID-19 vaccines in rich and poor countries, which WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said amounts to a “catastrophic moral failure”. He said it was equivalent.
The draft law calls for the WHO to take a 20% stake in the production of pandemic-related products such as tests, treatments and vaccines, and requires countries to disclose their deals with private companies.
“There is no mechanism within the WHO to really make life difficult for countries that choose not to act in accordance with the Convention,” Davis said.
Adam Kamrat Scott, a global health expert at Harvard University, said the draft pandemic agreement, like the global climate agreement, at least provides a new forum for countries to hold each other accountable, and that governments should said it needed to be explained there. What measures did they take?
Roland Drees, co-chair of the WHO’s negotiating committee for the agreement, said the pandemic agreement “is not about someone dictating what a country’s government can and cannot do.”
The International Health Regulations have legally binding obligations, including prompt reporting of dangerous new outbreaks. But such policies have been repeatedly ignored, including in African countries during the Ebola outbreak and in China during the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak.
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Suely Moon, co-director of the Geneva Graduate School of Global Health Center, said it was important to determine what role WHO is expected to play during the pandemic and how outbreaks can be stopped before they spread globally. Ta.
“If we don’t seize this closing opportunity, we will be as vulnerable as we were in 2019,” she warned.
Some countries appear to be acting independently to ensure cooperation from others in the next pandemic. President Joe Biden’s administration last month pledged to help 50 countries respond to new outbreaks and prevent global spread, giving the country leverage if critical information or materials are needed in the future. said.
It’s unclear what will change in the next pandemic, but it can help to focus on some glaring mistakes exposed by COVID-19, said Yuan-Qiong Hu, senior legal and policy advisor for Médecins Sans Frontières. He said he was hopeful that it might become a reality.
“We’re going to have to rely primarily on countries to do better,” she says. “That’s worrying.”
