A new pandemic agreement currently under negotiation must be a “historic agreement”, marking a step change in the field of global health after the COVID-19 crisis, the director general of the World Health Organization said on Sunday in Geneva. Health (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“We simply cannot continue as before,” said Mr. Tedros as he opened the work of the 76e World Health Assembly, which brings together in Geneva until May 30 the delegates of the Member States of the WHO.
Member States have started negotiations to reach an international agreement to ensure that the world is better equipped to prevent a future pandemic and to respond to it in a more effective way.
The process is still in its early stages, but the goal is to secure an agreement for the next World Health Assembly in May 2024.
“The pandemic agreement that member states are negotiating must be a historic agreement to bring about a paradigm shift in global health, recognizing that our fates are intertwined,” Mr. Tedros said.
“I hope that the ongoing negotiations on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response will lead to a solid multilateral approach that will save lives,” said UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, in a video message.
The President of East Timor, Jose Manuel Ramos-Horta, underlined that “every country, big or small, rich or poor, has struggled to implement an appropriate response to the pandemic”.
The pandemic has claimed, according to official figures, nearly seven million deaths worldwide, but the real toll must be close to twenty million deaths, according to WHO estimates.
In May, Mr. Tedros declared that COVID-19 was no longer a global health emergency.
But “COVID-19 is still with us, it’s still killing, it’s still changing and still demanding our attention,” he said on Sunday.
The world has emerged from a ‘long dark tunnel’, the WHO chief stressed, ‘now is a time to remember the darkness of the tunnel and…forge ahead in the light of the many and painful lessons he has taught us”.
If successful, the pandemic deal would be the second binding health treaty since the WHO was founded 75 years ago.
Mr Tedros recalled the success of the previous agreement, the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) adopted twenty years ago. Since then, smoking has fallen by a third worldwide, he said.