WHO chief calls for global accord to halt outbreaks
GENEVA — The World Health Organization on Monday is pushing for an international accord to help prevent and fight future pandemics amid the emergence of a worrying new omicron COVID-19 variant.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus joined leaders including outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Chilean President Sebastian Pinera for a long-planned and largely virtual special session of the U.N. health agency’s member states at the World Health Assembly.
The three-day gathering is aimed at devising a global action plan toward preventing, preparing and responding to future pandemics.
“The emergence of the highly mutated omicron variant underlines just how perilous and precarious our situation is,” Tedros said, calling for a “legally binding” agreement that wasn’t mentioned in a draft text seeking consensus on the way forward. “Indeed, omicron demonstrates just why the world needs a new accord on pandemics.”
“Our current system disincentivizes countries from alerting others to threats that will inevitably land on their shores,” he said, saying that South Africa and Botswana — where the new variant was detected in southern Africa — should be praised and not “penalized” for their work. That was a reference to restrictions announced by many countries on travel to and from the region.
The world should now be “wide awake” to the threat of the coronavirus, “but omicron’s very emergence is another reminder that although many of us might think we are done with COVID-19. It’s not done with us,” he added.
European Union member countries and others had sought language calling for work toward a treaty, but the United States and a few other countries countered that the substance of any accord should be worked out first before any such document is given a name. A “treaty”
would suggest a legally binding agreement that could require ratification — and would likely stir domestic political haggling in some countries.
Merkel, whose 16-year tenure is likely to end next week, called for “reliable financing” for WHO and increased contributions to the U.N. agency from its member states — while alluding to the EU position in favor of a binding agreement.
“The catastrophic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of health and the economy ought to be a lesson to us,” she said by video message. “Viruses know no national borders. That’s precisely why we should lay down measures to be taken to improve prevention, early detection, and response in internationally binding fashion.”