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A rapid and collaborative international response could have prevented the 2019 Covid-19 outbreak in China from becoming a global catastrophe in 2020, according to a scathing report on the response of world leaders and the World Health Organization to the pandemic.
An expert review by Independent panel for pandemic preparedness and response, commissioned by the WHO, sets out lessons to prevent future pandemics and makes dozens of recommendations for reform.
They include a new treaty creating a World Council on Health Threats, more monitoring power for WHO to investigate and publish information on disease outbreaks without government approval, and new funding for a Fund International Pandemic Funding (IPFF) that could invest $ 5 billion. – $ 10 billion a year in preparation and call $ 50 billion to $ 100 billion in the short term in the event of a health emergency.
“The group recommends a fundamental transformation designed to guarantee the commitment to the highest level with a new system. . . which citizens can trust to keep them safe and healthy, ”said their co-chairs, former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
The review does not examine the origins of Sars-Cov-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. But he criticizes the Chinese authorities and the WHO for being too slow to recognize that the virus was spreading among the people of Wuhan and then warn the world about human-to-human transmission.
“For the future, a precautionary approach should be used from the outset, recognizing that a respiratory illness can spread from person to person unless and until the opposite is established,” the report says.
The group sets out the International Health Rules, the only legally binding instrument against disease outbreaks. “As it is currently being built [they] they serve to limit rather than facilitate rapid action, “the report says.” When it comes to travel, it’s hard to see the discouragement of IHR restrictions being realistic for pandemics in our highly interconnected age. “.
“If travel restrictions had been imposed more quickly and widely, this would have been a serious inhibition to the rapid transmission of the virus,” Clark said in a press release prior to the publication of the review. “We have to realize that we live in the 21st century and not in the medieval era.”
The group criticizes the WHO for not declaring Covid a public health emergency of international interest until January 30. March 11 was officially called a pandemic.
The bad guys in India are witnessing the cremation of a relative who died of Covid-19. The expert group criticized China and the WHO for being too slow to recognize that the virus was spreading among humans in Wuhan © PRAKASH SINGH / AFP via Getty
But the strongest criticism was directed at the rich nations of Europe and North America for having “lost February 2020” by inaction, which led to “a lost month, when many more countries could have taken action. to contain the spread of Sars-Cov-2 and prevent the global health, social and economic catastrophe that remains under control ”.
When the severity of the crisis was finally recognized in March 2020, “there was madness for PPE, therapeutics and other equipment,” Clark said. “This was exacerbated by the lack of global leadership.”
To provide leadership in the future, the group calls on the world’s heads of government to establish a World Council on Health Threats and a Pandemic Framework Convention to provide a stronger legal basis for action. It is recommended that they be launched at a world summit, a special session of the United Nations General Assembly to be convened at the end of this year.
The council will allocate IPFF funds to institutions that develop preparedness and response capabilities, including a global platform capable of delivering vaccines, diagnoses, drugs and supplies “quickly and equitably around the world, moving from a market model to another aimed at supplying global public goods “. . The facility should be ready to shell out up to $ 100 billion in a short time in the event of another pandemic, according to the panel.
Travelers to Miami International Airport amid the coronavirus pandemic. The panel said the rapid and widespread slowdown in travel would have helped contain the disease © Daniel Slim / AFP via Getty Images
The review also calls for strengthening WHO authority and funding. This would involve increasing the fees paid by member states; “Depoliticize recruitment (especially at higher levels) following merit criteria and relevant competencies”; improve the performance of its board — which the group says it was unable to serve as an executive body during the pandemic — and appoint a CEO with a single seven-year term instead of the current five-year renewable terms.
Panel members speak with heads of government to ensure the measures are implemented. “Warehouse shelves in UN and national capitals are full of reports and reviews of previous health crises,” Sirleaf said. “If his warnings had been heeded, we would have avoided the catastrophe we are in today. That time must be different. “
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