Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
25 nations in favour of a global pandemic treaty
EUROPEAN Council President Charles Michel has championed the call for an international treaty to make the world better prepared to respond to pandemics and health crises.
This powerful idea of a treaty rooted in the World Health Organization (WHO) has been signed, so far, by 25 heads of state and heads of government.
They represent a diversity of countries – from north and south, east and west.
It is now 425 days since I declared Covid-19 a global health emergency.
In that time, the pandemic has brought out the best and worst in humanity.
We have seen acts of incredible courage from health workers and communities around the world, on a daily basis.
But the pandemic has also thrived amid the inequalities in our societies, the geopolitical fault lines in our world and the frayed trust in our public institutions.
It has exposed the gaps in national, regional and global preparedness and response systems, but has also allowed us to identify opportunities to strengthen the international health architecture.
The time to act is now. The world cannot afford to wait until the pandemic is over to start planning for the next one.
We must not allow the memories of this crisis to fade and go back to business as usual.
The impacts on our societies, economies and health, especially for the poor and the most vulnerable, are too significant. We cannot do things the way we have done them before and expect a different result. We must act boldly.
Without an internationallyco-ordinated, all-of-government, all-of-society, One Health approach to pandemic preparedness and response, we remain vulnerable.
It has shown how much we need a universal commitment to basic public health principles as the foundation for our work to prevent, detect and respond to epidemic and pandemic threats.
The idea behind the proposal for such a treaty is to systematically tackle the gaps exposed by Covid-19.
The world has come together never before to take on this crisis.
Now, we must leverage the new opportunities for global co-operation and innovation.
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This treaty would strengthen the implementation of the International Health Regulations, and critically, also provide a framework for international co-operation and solidarity.
The key issues it would address could include building resilience to pandemics and other global health emergencies, with robust national and global preparedness systems; ensuring timely and equitable access to pandemic countermeasures, including vaccines; supporting sustainable funding and capacity for prevention, detection, and responses to outbreaks; and it would promote mutual trust.
The treaty, which could be taken forward by the World Health Assembly, would be based on the WHO constitution, including the principles of health for all and non-discrimination.
Ultimately, of course, how such a treaty is developed and what it looks like, and whether it is ratified, is a matter for our member states – the nations of the world.
We must leave a legacy for children: a safer world for all.
The proposal for an international treaty is supported by global leaders including JV Bainimarama, Prime Minister of Fiji, Prayut Chan-o-cha, Prime Minister of Thailand, António Luís Santos da Costa, Prime Minister of Portugal, Mario Draghi, Prime Minister of Italy, Klaus Iohannis, President of Romania, Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the UK,
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Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda, Uhuru Kenyatta, President of Kenya, Emmanuel Macron, President of France, Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, Charles Michel, President of the European Council, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Prime Minister of Greece, Moon Jae-in, President of the Republic of Korea, Sebastián Piñera, President of Chile, Carlos Alvarado Quesada, President of Costa Rica, Edi Rama, Prime Minister of Albania, Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa, Keith Rowley, Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Mark Rutte, Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Kais Saied, President of Tunisia, Macky Sall, President of Senegal, Pedro Sánchez, Prime Minister of Spain, Erna Solberg, Prime Miniser of Norway, Aleksandar Vu i , President of Serbia, Joko Widodo, President of Indonesia, Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine and Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization.
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Dr Tedros is the World Health Organization’s director-general. This is an edited version of his remarks at a press conference held this week in Geneva, Switzerland, to announce discussions on a proposal for an international pandemic treaty