Pandemic Treaty: US Proposes Amending Existing International Health Rules First; Germany Presses for Sanctions

WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (speaking here in Berlin) has thrown his weight behind a new Pandemic Treaty – but the US thinks reform of existing rules, might be a better way forward.

 

Link to the source article >> https://healthpolicy-watch.news/pandemic-treaty-us-proposes-amending-international-health-regulations-and-civil-society-excluded-from-negotiations/

While a “pandemic treaty” could take years to establish, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Health Regulations (IHR) could be revised more rapidly to significantly improve global disease outbreak response, top US officials are saying.  The statements coincided with a 3-day working group meeting of WHO member states to discuss ways to strengthen the global muscle behind pandemic preparedness and response.

“Some major strides to advance global health security may take years to accomplish, for example, the creation of a new international instrument on preparedness and response, which the WHO and a number of other countries have endorsed,” US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and US Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra wrote in JAMA.

“But it is not necessary to choose between a new instrument and a revised standing legal framework; immediate steps can make a meaningful difference. One is strengthening the WHO’s International Health Regulations (IHR), adopted by the World Health Assembly in 1969 and revised in 2005,” they argued.

The IHR, they add, “is the legal framework under which 196 States Parties are responsible for developing their capacities to prevent, detect, report, and respond to public health emergencies within their borders, to prevent them from spreading to other countries”.

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the IHR weaknesses “that can be fixed, particularly around early warning systems, coordinating the response, and information sharing”, they added.

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