OPINION | WHO agreement could help prepare world for next pandemic

The biggest challenge, one of the most important elements of the agreement, concerns the critical sharing of data and samples collected on pathogens and their genetic blueprints, which can be essential for life-saving research. But many governments are often reluctant to let it go. Sharing by all countries requires guarantees that everyone will benefit from the resulting treatments, especially vaccines.

The draft agreement proposes a “pathogen access and benefit-sharing system” in which countries would agree to rapidly provide genetic sequences and biological samples of dangerous pathogens with pandemic potential to the WHO’s database. In return, WHO will enter into agreements with manufacturers of diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics, giving participating countries 10% free and 10% at cost. The manufacturer will pay for the support of the system. This “science for science” deal replaces the science of disease with the science of cure.

The mechanism is expected to be central to the ninth and final round of negotiations in the last two weeks of April. A group known as the Equity Bloc, made up mainly of African countries, expressed concern that the benefits promised by the proposed system to participating countries were insufficient. The pharmaceutical industry is also second-guessing the demands that companies will face. If their opposition can be overcome, the new system will help ensure that critical information flows freely, that pathogens are identified and characterized as quickly as possible wherever they are found, and that vaccines are developed to combat the pandemic emergency. and treatments will be distributed more equitably. Diseases do not respect borders. Withholding information puts everyone at risk.

Conservatives in the United States and elsewhere have expressed concern that the deal would create a global public health police force. Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Oversight Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, said at a February press conference that the WHO is They want to violate our sovereignty.” Keep the WHO on fire in a campaign year. As president, Donald Trump separated the United States from the organization. These concerns are overdone. The text of the agreement clearly affirms the “sovereign right of States” to pass their own laws and manage their genetic and biological resources.

This wording means that the government is still responsible. In the first weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic in late 2019 and early 2020, China concealed key facts about the virus, including human-to-human transmission in Wuhan, fueling its global spread. I put it on. The new agreement calls for countries to share information with “prompt, systematic and timely access” to both biological samples and genetic sequencing, but it overrides national privileges. isn’t it. There is no guarantee that what happened in Wuhan will never happen again.

Nor does the agreement compel compliance with its many goals and aspirations. However, similar language in international agreements on tobacco control has helped governments pass laws and regulations codifying domestic efforts for another important public health effort: tobacco control. Additionally, proponents of the new agreement point to an existing system established in the case of the influenza pandemic that brings together similar interests and appears to be a good model.

A 2021 report on the pandemic by an independent commission appointed by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus found “weak links across the board” in preparedness and response. “Preparedness was inconsistent and underfunded; warning systems were too slow and too soft.” Furthermore, the response “exacerbates inequalities” and “global political resulting in a lack of leadership. All of this combined to create a “toxic cocktail that turned the pandemic into a catastrophic crisis for humanity.” The official death toll is more than 7 million, but the real loss is likely two or three times that number.

The world was warned once again, and in more detail than before the coronavirus struck. There is no excuse to leave unprepared.