Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Ghebreyesus has called on countries to sign the health organization’s pandemic agreement so that the world can prepare for “Disease X.”
Ghebreyesus, speaking to an audience at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday, said he hoped countries would reach a pandemic agreement by May to tackle this “common enemy”.
Disease X is a hypothetical “placeholder” virus that has yet to be formed, but scientists say it could be 20 times more deadly than COVID-19.
It was added to the WHO’s shortlist of pathogens for research in 2017 that could cause “serious international outbreaks,” according to a 2022 WHO press release.
Ghebreyesus said that COVID-19 was the first Disease X, but it was important to prepare for other pandemics.
“There are unknowns that might happen, and anything that happens is a matter of when, not if, so we need to have placeholders for that, for diseases that we don’t know about,” Ghebreyesus said.
“We lost a lot of people [during COVID] because we cannot manage them,” Ghebreyesus said at the global confab. “They can be saved, but there is no space. There is not enough oxygen. So how can you have a system that can grow when the need comes?”
He said that a joint response through the agreement would help the world respond better to other outbreaks.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) attended a session on the response to the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) of the WHO Executive Board in Geneva, Switzerland, 5 October. 2020. Reuters
“A pandemic agreement can bring all the experiences, all the challenges we face and all the solutions into one,” Ghebreyesus said. “The agreement can help us prepare for the future in a better way.”
“This is a common global interest, and a very narrow national interest should not be hindered.”
Ghebreyesus said that an independent panel and experts had been working on ways to respond collectively and that the deadline for the agreement to be signed was in May.
He said that some preparedness responses could include early warning systems, organizing supply chains and advancing research and development to test drugs. Primary healthcare also needs to be looked at, as rich countries are not doing well during COVID, as they struggle with basics like contact tracing.
A nurse paints a dose of the BioNtech vaccine against the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at the vaccination center at the Dresden Exhibition, in Dresden, Germany, July 29, 2021. REUTERS
“It is better to anticipate something that might happen because it has happened in our history many times, and be prepared to face it. We should not face things unprepared; we can prepare for some unknowns as well.”
World leaders meet in March 2021 to announce that an agreement is being negotiated and drafted.
“The main goal of this agreement is to foster a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach, strengthening national, regional and global capacity and resilience against future pandemics,” a statement issued by the two dozen heads of state read. .
Ana Lucia Palacios (L) receives a dose of Sinovac’s COVID-19 vaccine at her home in Sumapaz, a rural zone of Bogota, on July 29, 2021. AFP via Getty Images
“This includes greatly increasing international cooperation to improve, for example, warning systems, data sharing, research and local, regional and global production and distribution of health and public health countermeasures such as vaccines, medicines, diagnostics and personal protective equipment. “
The Biden administration was negotiating a global pandemic agreement last year. GOP critics have said that such a deal would cede sovereignty to the WHO.
“The World Health Organization’s pandemic agreement is so vague, it undermines our sovereignty, and it can be exploited to tell Americans what kind of health care they need in the event of a global pandemic,” Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., said at a May news conference.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
