Geneva —
The World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday held its annual meeting with government ministers and other senior officials aimed at strengthening global preparedness for the next pandemic in the wake of the devastating impact of COVID-19.
But the most ambitious project – adopting a pandemic “treaty” – has been shelved for now after failing to produce a draft text that would bring countries together by Friday, as initially hoped.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus insisted this was not a failure, and acknowledged the “enormous” challenge negotiators face with a “very ambitious timeline,” alluding to the years it typically takes UN member states to conclude an international treaty.
When diplomats, health officials and activists were still working to draft a pandemic treaty, he predicted the meeting would be one of the most important in the WHO's 76-year history. But that's no longer the case.
“Of course, we all hope that by this Health Assembly we can reach agreement on a deal and get across the finish line,” Tedros said in his opening remarks, “but I am confident that you can still do so, because where there is the will, there is a way.”
“Now it's up to the World Health Assembly to decide what that modalities are, and the solution is in your hands,” he added.
While WHO officials are eager to build momentum around concerns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the risk is that the longer the pandemic fades into history, the less interested the public and policymakers will be in preparing for future pandemics.
The basic premise is that a pathogen that knows no borders requires a united response from all countries, but policymakers are struggling to balance national interests with calls from WHO officials to think bigger in the interest of humanity and equity.
So health ministers will now need to begin working to overcome deep-rooted differences, including over how the world will share information about emerging pathogens and scarce resources like vaccines and masks as demand surges.
Other prominent participants, including International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, also addressed the gathering of the UN health agency's 194 member states.
In a video message, Secretary-General Guterres called the pandemic agreement a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to enable global health systems to respond more quickly and equitably to the next pandemic, and urged delegates to support reforming international health agreements as a way to strengthen emergency response.
“As legal debates and endless negotiations over the pandemic treaty continue, we must not forget that the heart of healthcare is not just policies and programs, but our shared humanity,” Thai Prime Minister Suretta Tavisin said in a video broadcast.
The envoys will discuss global health issues, including the impact of wars in the Middle East, Sudan, Ukraine and other regions.
Instead of a pandemic treaty, Tedros said last week that the best way to strengthen the global health system to fight such cross-border spread was to revise the nearly 20-year-old International Health Regulations, a proposal that countries agree to “in principle.”
These regulations are focused on helping countries detect and respond to health emergencies.
For example, General Assembly envoys could establish the concept of a “pandemic emergency” to build on and refine the unwieldy category of a “public health emergency of international concern,” which is currently the WHO's highest level of alert for a dangerous epidemic.
Such terminology can be useful in informing the public during times of confusion and uncertainty, such as COVID-19.
