Do we need a pandemic treaty?

By November 2021, about half of the world’s population received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. In total, 127 doses have been given for every 100 people around the world.

But in the middle of this record-breaking public health achievement, the low-income countries stayed sidelined with fewer than 5 per cent of their people getting vaccinated. The novel coronavirus has now slowly become a ‘Pandemic of the Unvaccinated.’ And this is where the pandemic treaty comes into the picture.

But before we understand the pandemic treaty, we need to understand why the world is calling for one. In May 2020, the United States government made a bilateral deal with AstraZeneca plc for $1.2 billion (Rs 8,900 crore) in exchange for 300 million doses of vaccines. Around the same time, the United Kingdom made a similar deal with the same company for 90 million doses.

These deals may have accelerated the manufacturing process but they created a massive vaccine monopoly by the rich countries. The same goes for PPE kits, sanitisers, drugs and other essential resources.

According to media reports, rich countries paid triple the market prices for masks to outbid others and secure the supply, while developing countries turned to UNICEF for help. The pandemic exposed the plot holes of globalisation and exposed the self-interests of rich and powerful governments as they shut their airports and doors on the faces of the vulnerable.

By the beginning of 2021, global leaders and health experts began discussing what to do if renewed pandemic outbreaks become a recurrent feature of human life. Soon after the global spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, they realised the need to establish a global structure that would identify threats of pandemics early on and help ensure the production, procurement and distribution of resources on adequate levels and in a timely manner.

Thus, on December 1, 2021, the World Health Assembly — the decision-making body of the World Health Organization (WHO) — proposed establishing a pandemic treaty at their special session. The decision by the assembly establishes an intergovernmental negotiating body (INB) to draft and negotiate a WHO convention and agreement.

INB will submit its outcome for consideration by the 77th World Health Assembly in 2024. The new treaty is expected to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. It also aims to provide global equity and curb the ‘me-first’ approaches that stymie the global solidarity needed to deal with a global threat.

There is also a significant push to include ‘One Health’ as a part of the new pandemic treaty, which allows rules and regulations to track and prevent the spread of zoonotic diseases. COVID-19 exposed a global and systemic governance failure, one of which can be avoided through a significant change of direction and a policy paradigm shift through international cooperation. If not, the next virus outbreak could see the world making the same mistakes all over again.

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