Two dozen leaders joined the World Health Organization on Tuesday to call for a global pandemic treaty that would prepare future generations for a health emergency similar to covid-19.
WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news briefing that the treaty, whose ratification would depend on member states, could be presented as early as the organization’s annual ministerial assembly in May.
The leaders backing the proposal — including British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel — penned a joint op-ed published by several British and European newspapers Tuesday.
In it, they called the coronavirus pandemic “the biggest challenge to the global community since the 1940s” and said that nations should come together like they did in the post-World War II period, this time to “build a more robust international health architecture that will protect future generations.”
“There will be other pandemics and other major health emergencies. No single government or multilateral agency can address this threat alone,” they wrote.
The signatories also included leaders from countries such as Chile, South Korea, Rwanda, South Africa, Tunisia and Ukraine. Notably absent from the proposal were the leaders of China, Russia and the United States.
Tedros said discussions with the United States and China regarding the treaty were “positive.”
“Together, we must be better prepared to predict, prevent, detect, assess and effectively respond to pandemics in a highly coordinated fashion,” the op-ed said. “The covid-19 pandemic has been a stark and painful reminder that nobody is safe until everybody is safe.”
Among the treaty’s main goals, according to the letter, would be to enhance alert systems, data sharing and the global production of vaccines, medicines and personal protective equipment.
The article was published, however, as Britain and the European Union continued to spar over coronavirus vaccine shortages and British officials vowed to vaccinate the adult population there before exporting any doses abroad.
Earlier this month, wealthier nations blocked a proposal by developing countries at the World Trade Organization to temporarily lift patent rights to expand vaccine production globally.
