The director-general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has endorsed a proposal to form a treaty for creating rules on information sharing. Leaders of 23 countries and WHO have shown their support for the idea. The treaty will help in dealing with future health emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic.
The treaty will be aimed to tackle the gaps of information exposed by the COVID-19. The treaty is set to be presented to the 194 member countries of the organization at the next meeting in May 2021.
Support from the world
The proposal has already received formal support from the representatives of Fiji, Portugal, Romania, Britain, Rwanda, Kenya, France, Germany, Greece, Korea, Chile, Costa Rica, Albania, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, the Netherlands, Tunisia, Senegal, Spain, Norway, Serbia, Indonesia, Ukraine, and the World Health Organization itself.
The chairman of the European Union leaders, Charles Miachel proposed a similar idea in November 2020. His idea also aimed at ensuring access to medicines, vaccines, and diagnostics for future pandemics.
The nations agreed to the fact that there can be more virus outbreaks like COVID-19 in the future, and one nation or multi-lateral agency can not be held capable or accountable to address such threats alone.
“We believe that nations should work together towards a new international treaty for pandemic preparedness and response.”
— Opinion of the leaders in support
Reactions from the world powers
Both the United States of America and China have not taken any actions to show formal support to the Tedros’ proposal. But in the preliminary discussions, the two countries have reacted positively.
As the formal negotiations have not begun yet, the representatives from Washington are concerned about the timing and the consequences of the same. Although the US administration has remained open to international collaborations.
China on the other hand has been supporting the WHO representatives in the joint operation to determine the origins of the virus.
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