Latest news with #pandemicTreaty
Telegraph
21-05-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
Starmer signs treaty giving WHO power to recommend lockdowns
Sir Keir Starmer has signed an international pandemic treaty that gives the World Health Organisation (WHO) the power to recommend lockdowns. The UK is one of dozens of countries to join the agreement, designed to help the body co-ordinate the international response to any future pandemics. The treaty has wide-ranging implications for how the world would deal with a Covid-style outbreak, including by encouraging better disease surveillance and the sharing of vaccines and other medicines. The WHO said it was a 'victory for public health, science and multilateral action' and would 'better protect the world from future pandemic threats'. However, critics said it would give the organisation too much control and influence, including by recommending specific policies like lockdowns and mask mandates. The treaty explicitly rules out the WHO holding 'any authority to direct, order, alter or otherwise prescribe' any policy, or to 'impose any requirements that parties take specific actions'. It will not prevent the UK from following its own pandemic response, and cannot legally bind ministers to a particular strategy. However, opponents said the treaty risked allowing 'unelected' health officials to influence policy in the UK. Donald Trump's administration, which has not signed up to the treaty, announced earlier this year that the US would be withdrawing from the WHO. On Tuesday, in a video played to health officials during a summit in Geneva, Robert F Kennedy Jr, Mr Trump's health secretary, said other nations should see the US's exit as a 'wake-up call'. He added: 'We've already been in contact with like-minded countries, and we encourage others to consider joining us.' WHO 'in thrall to Chinese communists' Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, told The Telegraph: 'Labour's decision to ratify the WHO pandemic treaty is yet another unforgivable surrender of British sovereignty, freedom and democracy. 'It hands more powers to a discredited global health body that has shown time and again it is in thrall to the Chinese Communist Party, the very regime that covered up the origins of Covid-19 and silenced whistleblowers while the virus spread across the globe.' Lord Frost, the Conservative peer, said it was 'very regrettable' that Britain had signed the treaty 'quietly and hoping no one will notice'. 'This new international law commitment will tie this and future governments to WHO decisions, including potentially on future lockdowns,' he said. 'No doubt they will try to argue that they are not bound by the WHO, but their legal advisers, directed by the Attorney General, will argue that they have no choice.' Critics 'spreading misinformation' Speaking at the summit, Tedros Ghebreyesus, the WHO's director-general, accused critics of the deal of spreading misinformation. He said: 'It will not infringe on national sovereignty in any way nor give the WHO secretariat power to impose mask or vaccine mandate or lockdowns. 'You're all aware of the torrent of mis- and disinformation that we have faced through the negotiation of this agreement.' The deal follows three years of negotiations over what strategy the WHO should pursue in the event of a future pandemic. Some countries objected to a clause that said pharmaceutical companies must quickly give the WHO vaccines, medicines and diagnostics, ' targeting 20 per cent ' of what is produced. Of that, 10 per cent must be donated for free. On Tuesday, Baroness Chapman, a Foreign Office minister, said the treaty was a 'great example of the UK working with our partners to support countries to combat disease and strengthen their health systems'. However, Molly Kingsley, a health campaigner, said that while it could not override national law, it referred to the WHO as the 'directing and co-ordinating authority'. She said this suggested that in a public health emergency 'recommendations or directions given by the WHO and its director-general are likely to be followed by member states.' Ms Kingsley added: 'The combined impact of this agreement and the parallel international health regulations is to further enmesh the UK into an international pandemic management framework led by unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats without any meaningful public or parliamentary scrutiny or debate having taken place.' 'Recommendations are not obligations' A WHO spokesman said: 'It is blatantly false to suggest the WHO pandemic agreement, adopted by the UK and other governments at the World Health Assembly this week, impacts any country's sovereignty in any way. 'In fact, the opposite is true. National sovereignty on health decision-making is reaffirmed by the pandemic agreement.' They added: 'It is perplexing that issue is being raised on whether WHO should be able to make recommendations. 'Recommendations are not obligations. Under the WHO Constitution, the UK and other WHO member states have assigned WHO to serve as the 'directing and coordinating authority on international health work' – this is not new and does not in the least touch on national sovereignty.'
Irish Times
20-05-2025
- Health
- Irish Times
More than 120 countries back treaty to share vaccines in pandemics
World Health Organisation countries have finally approved a treaty to combat future pandemics, boosting international disease control efforts that are under growing pressure from funding cuts and political rows. Member states of the 194-nation global health body conditionally agreed on Tuesday to ensure countries that shared virus samples would receive disease tests, medicines and vaccines, after many poorer nations suffered shortages during the Covid-19 crisis. The measures to tackle the resource inequities that blighted the global response to Covid-19 come after rich nations have slashed aid budgets and the US has announced it will leave the WHO. The new pandemic treaty will go for ratification by participant countries once an annex on the long-contentious topic of detecting and sharing data on emerging pathogens is agreed. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director general, hailed the treaty as a 'historic' accord that would make the world safer. 'The agreement is a victory for public health, science and multilateral action,' he said. 'It will ensure we, collectively, can better protect the world from future pandemic threats. It is also a recognition by the international community that our citizens, societies and economies must not be left vulnerable to again suffer losses like those endured during Covid-19.' The pact was backed in Geneva by the WHO's annual World Health Assembly of member states after winning support in a committee vote late on Monday. More than 120 countries supported it with none against, although 11 abstained, including Poland, Israel, Italy, Russia, Slovakia and Iran. READ MORE The agreement, originally meant to be finalised a year ago, aims to improve international mechanisms for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. The deal sets out a provisional mechanism in which participating drugs companies would aim to make 20 per cent of their real-time production of pandemic vaccines, medicines and diagnostic tests available to the WHO. These would be distributed according to public health risks and needs, with a particular focus on developing countries. This mechanism – known as the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing system (Pabs) – will now go to an international working group to be drafted and negotiated for consideration at next year's World Health Assembly. An agreement on Pabs has been delayed by disagreements over proposals for pharmaceutical companies to fund the monitoring of new pathogens, which should in turn speed up efforts at vaccine development. The pharmaceutical industry lobby group said the treaty was just a 'starting point', and its success would depend on how it was implemented. The WHO international working group will also work on setting up a financial mechanism and global supply and logistics network to support the treaty's efforts. When Covid-19 vaccines were rolled out starting at the end of 2020, many poorer countries had only meagre supplies after richer nations bought up most of the doses. The pandemic accord has drawn criticism from conservatives in the US and other countries. They have attacked it as a threat to government sovereignty on health policy and intellectual property protection, although the pact's supporters say it is neither. The accord says that it does not provide the WHO with any authority to dictate government policies in areas such as travel restrictions, vaccination mandates or lockdowns. International health experts welcomed the pandemic accord, but some queried whether all countries would comply – and, if not, what mechanisms would force them to do so. − Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025
Reuters
19-05-2025
- Health
- Reuters
Slovakia to challenge adoption of 'critical' global pandemic agreement
GENEVA, May 19 (Reuters) - Slovakia's COVID-19 vaccine sceptic prime minister said on Monday that his country would challenge the adoption of a potentially groundbreaking global treaty on improving pandemic preparedness by calling for a vote at the World Health Assembly. After considerable disagreements were bridged, World Health Organization member states had agreed in principle on the text of the legally binding agreement in April. If there is a vote, two-thirds of the 194 WHO member countries must vote in favour for the agreement to pass at the World Health Assembly committee on Monday, before formal adoption by a plenary session on Tuesday. While the Slovak move is unlikely to gain much backing, supporters of the agreement see it as symbolically problematic following protracted negotiations. A statement by Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said that the WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had called him and asked him not to demand a vote. World Health Organization officials were not immediately available for comment. "I reiterated that the Slovak delegation is bound by the Slovak government's instructions to demand a vote on the pandemic treaty," the statement said, adding that if the vote takes place, the delegation was instructed to oppose the treaty. "It violates the principle of the sovereignty of the member states and disproportionately interferes with the area of human rights," the statement said. The draft accord addresses structural inequities about how drugs or vaccines and health tools are developed. For the first time in an international health agreement, it would require national policies to set access conditions for research and development agreements, and ensure that pandemic-related drugs, therapeutics and vaccines are globally accessible. It calls for the "widest possible international and regional collaboration" in a pandemic response, "while reaffirming the principle of the sovereignty of States in addressing public health matters". The agreement had been seen by many diplomats and analysts as a victory for global cooperation at a time when multilateral organisations like the WHO have been battered by sharp cuts in U.S. funding. "It contains critical provisions, especially in research and development, that — if implemented — could shift the global pandemic response toward greater equity," said Michelle Childs of the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative, a non-profit research group. Fico, a pro-Russian populist, has long been a critic of the way the previous Slovak cabinet handled the pandemic. He has said he did not get vaccinated for COVID-19, and was charged in relation to a protest against pandemic restrictions. The charges were later dropped.
