Nations from around the world will meet on Monday to debate whether to pursue a pandemic treaty outlining how to deal with the next disaster, which experts believe is just a matter of time.
The three-day summit at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva takes place about two years after the first cases of Covid-19 were reported.
The economic chaos and the loss of millions of lives have prompted calls for stronger international defenses to prevent a repeat calamity.
“In the future, there will be additional pandemics. When, not if, is the question “The WHO’s associate director-general for emergency preparedness, Jaouad Mahjour, said reporters.
The World Health Assembly, the WHO’s decision-making body, is hosting an unprecedented special session to examine creating a new pandemic preparedness and response agreement.
The conference should end with a decision on how to proceed. The desired result, whether a treaty or another formulation, will be achieved later, possibly as early as 2024.
However, it is unclear how far governments are willing to go in negotiating binding rules for preparing for the next outbreak and putting in place effective procedures to combat it.
