A pantheon of global leaders including 23 former national Presidents, 22 former Prime Ministers, a former UN General Secretary and 3 Nobel Laureates has called for an “urgent agreement from international negotiators on a Pandemic Accord, under the Constitution of the World Health Organization, to bolster the world’s collective preparedness and response to future pandemics.”
The group of global leaders, “from all continents and fields of politics, economics, and health management,” issued a joint open letter urging “accelerated progress in current negotiations to reach the world’s first ever multi-lateral agreement on pandemic preparedness and prevention.”
Negotiations were started inter-governmentally to reach “international agreement on future pandemic non-proliferation were begun in December 2021 between 194 of the world’s 196 nations. Nations set themselves the deadline of May 2024 by which they should reach agreement on what would be the world’s first ever Pandemic Accord.” This comes in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has so far claimed “7 million lives and wiped $2 trillion from the world economy.”
As of March 22, the ninth round of Pandemic Accord negotiations is underway. The open letter urges negotiators to “’redouble their efforts’ to meet the imminent deadline and not let their efforts be blown off course by malicious misinformation campaigning against the WHO.”
The WHO's website has the article.
