Ending this pandemic, preventing the next one.
This is part of a communication series to health leaders in our partner countries (sent June, 2021)
“Ending this pandemic, preventing the next one.” was the theme of the 74th World Health Assembly, which concluded on Monday, May 31, 2021.
Time to account.
One year ago, the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) appointed The Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response (The Independent Panel) in response to a May 2020 World Health Assembly resolution calling for an independent review of lessons learned from the current pandemic and to provide recommendations to improve capacity for global pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response.
At the 2021 World Health Assembly, key recommendations from The Independent Panel’s 86-page report included:
Empowerment to Act:
Establish a Global Health Threats Council. Like the UN Security Council, the GHT Council would include heads of state (it would also include civil society and private sector representatives) and elevate the political authority in support of WHO as an operational agency. It would strengthen political commitment to pandemic preparedness and response, hold actors accountable and assure each country adopts a Pandemic Framework Convention within the next six months.
Establish a new, fully transparent global surveillance system. The system would give the WHO the authority to publish information about outbreaks with pandemic potential on an immediate basis without needing to seek approval and to send experts to investigate immediately.
Stabilize the WHO director-general position. Limit the position to a single term and expand the term to seven years but with no option for re-election.
Collective Resources Mobilization:
Transform the current ACT-A* into a truly global platform aimed at delivering global public goods including vaccines, diagnostics, therapeutics, and supplies that can be distributed swiftly and equitably worldwide—shifting from a market model to one aimed at delivering global public goods. *The Access To COVID-19 Accelerator (ACT-A) is a global collaboration to facilitate development, production, and equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments and vaccines (COVAX).
Strengthen the financing of the WHO. Develop a new funding model to end earmarked funds and to increase Member State fees.
Create an International Pandemic Financing Facility. The facility would have the capacity to mobilize long term (10-15 year) contributions and be ready to disburse from USD $50-100B at short notice once a pandemic is declared. The GHT Council would allocate and monitor the funding.
Member State Accountability:
Heads of state and government should at a global summit adopt a political declaration under the auspices of the UN General Assembly to commit to these transformative reforms.
Invest in national preparedness now as it will be too late when the next crisis hits. All governments should review their preparedness plans and allocate the necessary funds and people required to be prepared for another health crisis.
Strengthen Individual Country Accountability. Heads of state and government should appoint national pandemic coordinators who are directly accountable to them and who have a mandate to drive whole-of-government coordination for pandemic preparedness and response.
~ Rt. Hon. Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand and co-chair of The Independent Panel for Pandemic Response.
“We weren’t ready … the world was too slow.”
Co-Chaired by two former heads of state, the Rt Hon. Helen Clark, former Prime Minister (and former Ministry of Health Director) of New Zealand, and Her Excellency Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former President of Liberia, The Panel included 13 members, selected by the Co-Chairs. The Panelists have a significant mix of skills and expertise in infectious disease, global and national health policy and financing systems, outbreaks and emergencies, economics, youth advocacy, and in the wellbeing of women and girls.
Dr. Mike Ryan, WHO's emergencies director, agreed with the recommendations, noting:
"Right now the pathogens have the upper hand, they are emerging more frequently and often silently in a planet that is out of balance… We need to turn that very thing that has exposed us in this pandemic, our interconnectedness, we need to turn that into a strength.”
WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus added:
“At present, pathogens have greater power than WHO…They exploit our interconnectedness and expose our inequities and division.”
The “time has come” for a pandemic treaty.
“Our Chernobyl Moment”
Thus far, the COVID-19 pandemic has:
Cost over 3.5 million lives;
Lost over $7 Trillion in gross domestic product in 2020 alone; and
Made painfully clear that social determinants of health, e.g., poverty and racism, are as important as underlying medical conditions as risk factors for developing severe COVID-19.
For the first time in 20 years, global poverty levels are predicted to rise, erasing much of the progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals
Panel co-chair Helen Clark asserted that the challenge for member states is whether they will agree to empower WHO “just as in the dying days of the Cold War,” when they agreed to empower the IAEA. She stated:
“It (WHO) needs more powers. If we see this as the Chernobyl moment of global health, and then relate it to the new powers that the International Atomic Energy Agency got at the time of that nuclear safety disaster, then we see ... WHO needs the kinds of powers that we’re spelling out”
Lessons for Global Health Leaders
Scoreboards Don’t Lie.
Good leaders understand the score and make adjustments. They confront the facts and they adjust accordingly.
Bad leaders ignore or deny the facts, they blame others and they make excuses.
Leaders are account-able. They Act. Now.
The World Health Assembly is effectively the WHO Board.
Every Board meeting is a referendum on three questions:
Do we have the right plan?
Are we executing it well?
Do we have the right leadership?
Since the World Health Assembly is made up of Member Nation States, it is up to the leaders of all countries to decide how to empower WHO and other organizations to Act Now together if we are to change the Global Scoreboard.
“Our message is simple and clear: the current system failed to protect us from the COVID-19 pandemic. And if we do not act to change it now, it will not protect us from the next pandemic threat, which could happen at any time.”
~ Helen Clark, Independent Panel co-chair
Thank you for acting now to end this pandemic … and prevent the next pandemic.
Rob Thames, FACHE, FHFMA, Director, GHAP (Global Health Administration Partners)