A series of former government leaders, academics and health experts have said that the Ebola and Hantavirus outbreaks show that the world urgently needs to agree on how to prevent the risk of pandemics, writes Politico.
The open letter, published on the 8th of June, said that the world could have avoided three infectious disease outbreaks since the Covid-19 pandemic – mpox, Hantavirus and Ebola – but instead has allowed another preventable disaster to unfold in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. Ebola has already caused at least 60 deaths there.
The World Health Organization’s member states were supposed to reach an agreement in Geneva in May on action to prevent and respond to pandemics, but it has been postponed for the third year in a row because of a failure to reach a consensus on sharing pathogen samples, data and vaccines.
The letter, also signed by former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, said that at a time when pathogens can be sequenced in hours, vaccines developed in months and artificial intelligence is being used across the globe, many of the tools needed are already available.
The question is whether national leaders will choose to invest in them and use them.
At the urging of the European Union, WHO member states decided during the Covid-19 pandemic that an international agreement was needed to improve the fragmented and highly diverse national responses if and when the world faces the next major outbreak. The agreement is expected to outline countries’ responsibilities to identify the cause more quickly, as well as provide for cooperation and fair distribution of vaccines and medicines to prevent the high mortality rate that has mainly affected the poorest countries in the case of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The signatories of the letter want world leaders to conclude a WHO “pandemic agreement” and commit to providing fair, predictable and affordable funding for the international health system. They also call for sharing information on technologies that would allow for the creation of self-reliant local systems to respond to disease outbreaks, especially in developing countries.
The talks are expected to resume in Geneva in July.
Read also: Officials oppose US plan to treat Ebola-exposed Americans in third countries