Feature: World Health Assembly urges stronger preparedness for public health emergencies, WHO response

GENEVA, May 31, 2021 (Xinhua) The World Health Assembly on Monday called on the World Health Organization (WHO) to strengthen its preparedness and response to public health emergencies worldwide and proposed the formation of a specific working group for this purpose.

During the meeting, the countries came to the conclusion that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has fully exposed the weaknesses in the human health emergency response system at the national, regional and global levels.

COVID-19 reveals serious shortcomings in preparedness

Member states of the World Health Assembly agreed that COVID-19 has exposed serious shortcomings in the world's preparedness for timely and effective prevention of potential health emergencies, and that the world's response capacity urgently needs improvement.

Ahead of the World Health Assembly, the Independent Authority for Epidemic Preparedness and Response (IPPPR), established by WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, presented its final major report on the response of WHO and its member states to COVID-19.

Recognizing that COVID-19 has been a preventable global catastrophe, the IPPPR report largely attributes the outbreak to inconsistent preparations and a lack of funding, which has long been paralyzed by a very slow and totally weak alert system.

"February 2020 was a lost month, when steps could and should have been taken to curb the epidemic and curb the epidemic," the authority said, adding that it resulted from two things.

The first is that countries have not fully realized the threat, and the other is that they have chosen a wait-and-see attitude rather than concerted public health action, and have failed to understand the severity of the new pathogen.

Even after the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak as a public health emergency of international importance, on January 30, 2020, a large number of countries were still not adopting a robust containment strategy that could have prevented the global pandemic.

At the same time, the spread of the epidemic shows that the WHO has been poorly able to fulfill its duty in full, and uncoordinated actions by countries facing the epidemic have exacerbated inequality in access to response tools, such as personal protective equipment, diagnostic or testing kits, Therapies and vaccines, all of which require global political leadership, to address them.

Working Group on Strengthening WHO's Preparedness and Response

The World Health Assembly has proposed the establishment of a working group for Member States on strengthening WHO's preparedness and response to health emergencies. The group will consider the findings and recommendations of three reports submitted successively by the IPPPR, the International Health Regulations Review Committee (IHR), and the WHO's Independent Oversight and Advisory Committee.

With regard to the International Health Regulations in particular, the Review Committee is of the view that the failure of countries to comply with certain obligations under the Regulations, particularly with regard to preparedness, has caused the COVID-19 pandemic to develop into a protracted global health emergency. Therefore, the Committee highlighted the need for governmental responsibility to implement the International Health Regulations at the highest level.

The Committee recommends a strong accountability mechanism to assess and improve compliance with IHR obligations to enhance preparedness, international cooperation and timely reporting of public health events.

While urging Member States to strengthen their core public health capacities and to adopt an all-risk and multisectoral approach to health emergency preparedness, the World Health Assembly resolution calls on countries to notify WHO of public health events within their territories in accordance with the International Health Regulations (2005), and to continue In reporting to the World Health Organization accurate, detailed and timely information about public health.

One of the working group's priorities will be to conduct a WHO convention, agreement or other international mechanisms on pandemic preparedness and response.

The working group is expected to report to the special session of the World Health Assembly, scheduled for November, which will be devoted to establishing an intergovernmental process for drafting and negotiating a relevant agreement.

A new mechanism based on sovereign equality and consultations

Addressing the World Health Assembly, China's delegate, Yang Feng, who is also the deputy director of the Health Emergency Response Office of the National Health Commission of China, expressed his appreciation to WHO for the tremendous work it has done. Noting that the virus knows no borders and that the epidemic has no race, he called for global solidarity and cooperation in building a community with a shared future for humanity.

"China agrees with the reporting concept of building a 'One Health' surveillance system and 'Whole Government and Whole Society' epidemic response approach, which aims to improve the International Health Regulations and other international legal systems," he said.

"China considers that promoting equitable distribution and access to COVID-19 vaccines globally is critical to preventing and controlling the outbreak, and has fulfilled its commitment to provide COVID-19 vaccines as a public good by providing medical assistance to 80 countries, and exporting vaccines to 43," he said. countries and provide 300 million doses of vaccines worldwide.

"China will continue to make its own contribution to enhancing access and affordability of vaccines in developing countries," Yang stressed.

He also noted that China has taken note of and generally agrees with the recommendation made in the reports to establish a new international expert investigation mechanism and national capacity review mechanism.

"However, we stress that the new mechanism must follow the basic principle of sovereign equality, be based on the consensus of the concerned parties, and require specialized studies and consultations," he added.

"China has also taken note of the recommendation to establish the Global Council on Health Threats, and takes an open attitude and is ready to work with the international community to study the proposal," Yang noted.