WHO annual conference: This contract should prevent the next pandemic

The most important goal of the new agreement is to be better prepared for the next pathogen than with SARS-COV-2. An unexpected outbreak of illness should be contained as quickly and effectively as possible and a global spread should be prevented. In fact, there is already a similar agreement: the “International Health Regulations” from 2005. Germany also convicted these health rules on its own right and is therefore bound to it. On this basis of international law, the general director of the WHO was able to proclaim a “health emergency of international scope” on January 30, 2020-the official start of the Covid 19 pandemic. In their course, however, it turned out that the existing funds and procedures were not sufficient to meet a global threat as by the new coronavirus. The WHO was reported around seven million deaths in connection with Sars-COV-2, the real number is higher, depending on the estimate, the virus brought death of up to twenty million people. Therefore, in December 2021, the WHO special assembly agreed to negotiate a more effective international contract.

The most important keyword for this is called “Equity” – justice or equality in the international debate. First of all, the distribution of vaccines during the Corona pandemic had a behavior of the rich countries, which, among other things, was scanned as “vaccination nationalism” by the WHO general director in the summer of 2020. At that time, the vaccination campaign started with the newly developed mRNA vaccines. And it was the rich nations that immediately secured contingents with billions of vaccine doses of the still scarce vaccines. If you couldn’t pay, you went away empty-handed or at least initially had to be satisfied with comparatively small deliveries, as made possible, for example, through the COVAX (“Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access”), which had failed at the end.

Behind it is the insight that the population of individual countries can ultimately only be fine, even if all other people on earth are at least granted basic health care. Because diseases that cannot be manageable somewhere on the planet will break out, sooner or later everyone will hit it.

However, the approach goes even further: Not only humanity itself, but also the other living things and also the ecosphere of the earth must be “good” if everyone should not be at risk in the end. This refers to climate change no less than to the dwindling biodiversity. Viruses with pandemical potential can always skip easily where people penetrate into pristine habitats previously to poach or to drive raw materials. Because we have to think globally, scientific cooperation should also be strengthened in order to have data on the spread of a pathogen or genetic information, as is required for the development of a vaccine, to have it quickly and as much as possible across all borders.

Of course, the delicate geopolitical situation also plays into such a contract. So it should be binding under international law. But how should injuries to the rules be punished? The fact that the United States is leaving the WHO with effect from January 2026 is primarily concerned with the concern for its own national sovereignty and possible influencing the WHO by opponents such as China. However, every country lost to the WHO and the Pandemic Agreement – especially since such a weighty as the USA – reduces the effect of the financial losses, which is already carefully formulated.

Critics also doubt that vaccines, medication or tests will actually be delivered to where they are most urgently needed. This text only obliges to make 20 percent of their own stocks available. But that should hardly be enough in an emergency. There may not be much time to say goodbye to the present contract and then hope for the best. Because an international commission of experts used by the important medical journal “Lancet” has estimated the probability of a further pandemic last year with at least 25 million deaths worldwide: it is 50 percent.

On April 16, it was possible to agree on a text after more than three years that enables “an WHO agreement, an agreement or another international instrument for prevention, preparation and reaction to pandemics. This contract would also be binding under international law. However, the undecided formulations in the title already show that there are still a number of hurdles in the way.

Nevertheless, the text in Geneva adopted by the negotiators should be officially decided at the 78th General Assembly of the World Health Organization from 19 to May 27. However, this pandemic agreement would only come into force on the thirtieth day after the sixtieth member country has deposited the ratification certificate from the WHO general director. Such complex legal procedures are common in order to give a contract also measurable international weight before becoming part of international law. At the 2015 Paris climate agreement, for example, a similar ratification process took almost a year.