A week before the World Health Assembly is due to meet, more than 100 high-profile people have signed an open letter to leaders of WHO member states calling for an urgent agreement on a pandemic accord.
“An agreement is meant to be reached just two and a half months from now – countries imposed a deadline of May 2024, in time for the 77th World Health Assembly,” the letter states. And continues:
“As countries now enter what should be the final stages of the negotiations, they must ensure that they are agreeing on actions which will do the job required: to prevent and mitigate pandemic threats.
“We urge solutions which ensure both speed in reporting and sharing pathogens, and in access – in every country – to sufficient tools like tests and vaccines to protect lives and minimise harm.”
In total, 107 people signed the letter. Signatories include 16 Club de Madrid members, 9 Global Leadership Foundation members, 46 Nizami Ganjavi International Centre members and a variety of academics and former politicians, including the former UK prime ministers Gordon Brown and Tony Blair.
The World Health Organisation’s (“WHO’s”) Pandemic Accord is also referred to as the Pandemic Treaty and WHO Convention Agreement + (“WHO CA+”).
From 27 May to 1 June 2024, WHO is due to convene its 77th World Health Assembly(WHA”). The WHA is WHO’s main decision-making body. The proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations (“IHR”) amendments and the text of the Pandemic Treaty will be presented to the 77th WHA. WHO and its backers will be hoping that both the Treaty text and the IHR will be adopted.
In 2023, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health highlighted the two issues that dominated discussions during the 76th WHA: new ways to fund the “cash-strapped” WHO and the rewriting process for the pandemic response playbook.
The rewriting of the rules that will lead to the establishment of a pandemic accord will dominate discussions again this year. The pandemic accord negotiations coincide with negotiations on IHR amendments. These 2-track negotiations often involve the same diplomats. Johns Hopkins described the difference, in their view, between the two proposed instruments:
The IHR are mostly seen as technical rules for disease surveillance, and negotiations are underway about making targeted amendments that could expand the IHR’s scope to also include equity considerations and other issues. The pandemic accord, on the other hand, is seen as a broader instrument that could also consider a host of other issues including intellectual property and One Health issues, for example.
The 2023 World Health Assembly: A New Playbook for Health Emergencies? Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 18 May 2023
Five months after its 76th WHA, on 7 October 2023, WHO released a statement in which it declared it would not share the finalised IHR amendments with the public and WHO member states four months before the vote on it in May 2024 as WHO’s own rules require. Dr. Silvia Behrendt pointed out that this is unlawful.
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