World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has called on countries to sign up to the health organization's pandemic treaty so the world can prepare for “Disease X.”
Speaking to an audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday, Ghebreyesus said he hoped countries would reach a pandemic agreement by May to deal with this “common enemy”. Ta.
Disease X is a hypothetical “placeholder” virus that has not yet formed, but scientists say it could be 20 times more deadly than COVID-19 . According to a 2022 WHO press release, it was added in 2017 to the candidate list of research pathogens with the potential to cause a “serious international epidemic.”
Ghebreyesus said that while COVID-19 was the first Disease X, it is important to prepare for new pandemics.
“Unknown things can happen, and what happens is a matter of when, not if. So for diseases that we don't know about, we need a placeholder for that.” Ghebreyesus said.
“We lost a lot of people [during COVID] Because we couldn't control them,” Ghebreyesus told the world conference. “We could have saved them, but we didn't have the space. We didn't have enough oxygen. So how do we build a system that can scale when we need it?”
He said a shared response through the treaty would allow the world to better respond to new outbreaks.
“The pandemic agreement can bring together all the experiences we have faced, all the challenges and all the solutions,” Ghebreyesus said. “This agreement will help us prepare for the future in a better way.”
“This is a common global interest, and very narrow national interests should not get in the way.”
Ghebreyesus said an independent commission and experts were considering ways to collectively respond, and the deadline for signing the treaty was May.
He said preparedness responses could include early warning systems, organizing supply chains and boosting research and development to test medicines. We will also need to look at primary health care, given that rich countries have struggled with basic responses such as contact tracing and have been hit hard by the coronavirus.
“It's better to anticipate what might happen and prepare for it, because it has happened many times in our history. We should not face things unprepared. No. You can prepare for the unknown.”
World leaders met in March 2021 and announced that a treaty was being negotiated and drafted.
“The main goal of this treaty is to promote a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach to strengthen national, regional and global capacities and resilience against future pandemics,” said a statement from the leaders of 20 countries. is written like this. .
“This includes, for example, improving alert systems, data sharing, research, local, regional and global production and distribution of medical and public health measures such as vaccines, medicines, diagnostics and personal protective equipment. This includes significantly increasing international cooperation.”
The Biden administration was negotiating a global pandemic agreement last year. Republican critics said such an agreement would cede sovereignty to the WHO.
“The World Health Organization's Pandemic Treaty is very vague and could be misused to affect our sovereignty and tell Americans what kind of health care they should receive in the event of a global pandemic.” “There is,” said Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) at a press conference in May.
