The world must prepare for next pandemic

Despite years of warnings, much of the world was unprepared for the coronavirus pandemic. Shortages, confusion and delays cost many lives. Rich nations served themselves first with vaccines, while the poor waited in line. Now, an international effort to redress some of these shortcomings with a new agreement faces a deadline when the 194-member World Health Assembly, the governing body of the World Health Organization, meets next month in Geneva. A pact would help the world avoid critical mistakes during the next catastrophe — if the many disagreements can be hammered out.

The biggest sticking point — one of the agreement’s most important elements — concerns critical sharing of data and samples collected on pathogens and their genetic blueprints, which can be essential for lifesaving research but which many governments are often reluctant to relinquish. To get all countries to share requires assurances that all will benefit from the resulting treatments, especially vaccines.

A draft agreement proposes a “Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing System” in which countries would agree to swiftly provide WHO databases with the genetic sequences and biological samples of a dangerous pathogen with pandemic potential. In return, the WHO would sign contracts with manufacturers for diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics, giving the participating nations 10% free and 10% at cost. The manufacturers would pay for supporting the system. This “science for science” trade would see the science of the disease swapped for science of the remedies.

Conservatives in the United States and elsewhere have expressed alarm the agreement would create a global public health cop. At a February news conference, Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Oversight subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic, said, “The WHO wants to infringe upon our national sovereignty with their proposed ‘pandemic treaty.’ ” Republicans might continue to make the WHO a campaign-year bugaboo; as president, Donald Trump had pulled the United States out of the organization. These concerns are overwrought. The language in the agreement clearly affirms the “sovereign right of states” to pass their own legislation and control their own genetic and biological resources.

This language means that governments are still in charge. In the first weeks of the coronavirus pandemic, in late 2019 and early 2020, China concealed key facts about the virus, including human-to-human transmission in Wuhan, helping to ignite the global spread.

While the new agreement would call upon nations to share information with “rapid, systematic and timely access” to both biological samples and genetic sequencing, the agreement does not override national prerogatives. It does not guarantee what happened in Wuhan would not happen again.

A 2021 report on the pandemic from an independent panel appointed by WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus found “weak links at every point” in preparedness and response to COVID-19. “Preparation was inconsistent and underfunded. The alert system was too slow — and too meek.” Moreover, the response “exacerbated inequalities” and “global political leadership was absent.” All these combined into “a toxic cocktail which allowed the pandemic to turn into a catastrophic human crisis.” The official death toll is more than 7 million, but the actual loss is probably twice or three times as large.