World Health Organization to Negotiate Terms of Global Pandemic Response Treaty

Member nations of the World Health Organization have approved a plan to negotiate the terms of an international pandemic response treaty.

Attendees at the closing session of the World Health Assembly in Geneva voted Monday on resolution to create a special WHO assembly session in November aimed at reaching a treaty or convention that would help nations better prepare and respond to a potential pandemic similar to the COVID-19 outbreak. The ongoing outbreak has sickened over 170 million people around the world and led to more than 3.5 million deaths since it was first detected in central China in late 2019.    WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told attendees “the time has come” for such a treaty, saying it would strengthen both the U.N. health agency and global health security as a whole.  He said it will address “the lack of sharing of data,  information, technologies and resources” that marked the sluggish response to the COVID-19 pandemic.