The World Health Organization (WHO) has reached a draft pandemic agreement. The development has been in the works since December 2021.
“The nations of the world made history in Geneva today,” Dr. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement. “In reaching consensus on the Pandemic Agreement, not only did they put in place a generational accord to make the world safer, they have also demonstrated that multilateralism is alive and well, and that in our divided world, nations can still work together to find common ground, and a shared response to shared threats. I thank WHO’s Member States, and their negotiating teams, for their foresight, commitment and tireless work. We look forward to the World Health Assembly’s consideration of the agreement and – we hope – its adoption.”
Proposals in the agreement include creating a pathogen access and benefit-sharing system, utilizing a One Health system, technology transfers, establishing a global health emergency team, and developing a global supply chain and logistics network.
According to the WHO, the draft agreement does not allow the health body to “mandate States to take specific actions, such as ban or accept travellers, impose vaccination mandates or therapeutic or diagnostic measures or implement lockdowns.”
Tedros announced earlier this week that the WHO has “established the Pandemic Fund, the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence, the mRNA Technology Transfer Programme, the BioHub, the Global Health Emergency Corps, the Interim Medical Countermeasures Network, the Universal Health and Preparedness Review, and more.”
President Trump signed an executive order in January to begin the process of withdrawing the United States from the WHO.
