Africa: WHO Director-General's remarks at the High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response
[WHO] New York -- Your Excellency Dr Khalilur Rahman, President of the General Assembly, Your Excellency Amar Bendjama, President of ECOSOC, My sister, Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohamed, The Right Honourable Helen Clark, Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), delivered remarks at the High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response. He expressed his predecessor's invitation to speak at Columbia University in 2017, where he declared the world unprepared for the next pandemic. Two years later, COVID-19 arrived, causing over 20 million excess deaths and a loss of approximately US$ 10 trillion from the global economy. This pandemic exposed and exacerbated faultlines in global health security.
In response, WHO established ten initiatives across five key areas to strengthen global health security: national capacities, surveillance and early warning, equitable access to vaccines and tools, international sharing of pathogen samples, and international response capacity. Additionally, Member States strengthened the international legal framework governing pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response by adopting amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) and the WHO Pandemic Agreement.
The final piece remaining is the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS) system, which countries are negotiating.
Dr. Ghebreyesus emphasized that the Pandemic Agreement and the IHR do not infringe on national sovereignty, as they recognize that pandemics do not respect borders and that cooperation is the best defense. He expressed gratitude to co-facilitators Ambassador Ngoga of Rwanda and Ambassador Hovhannisyan of Armenia and acknowledged the efforts of German Permanent Representative Annalena Baerbock.
Dr. Ghebreyesus requested the rapid conclusion of PABS negotiations, emphasizing that delays are costly when the next pandemic strikes. He concluded by reiterating the importance of "no one is safe until everyone is safe" and urged immediate action to address gaps and build resilient health systems.
Written by urgent.news from AllAfrica Health's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
