Expert panel suggests WHO should have more power to stop pandemics

A panel of independent experts who reviewed the World Health Organizations response to the coronavirus pandemic says the UN health agency should be granted ldquoguaranteed rights of accessrdquo in countries to investigate emerging outbreaks a contentious idea that would give it more powers and require member states to give up some of theirsIn a report released Wednesday the panel faulted countries worldwide for their sluggish response to Covid19 saying most waited to see how the virus was spreading until it was too late to contain it leading to catastrophic results The group also slammed the lack of global leadership and restrictive international health laws that ldquohinderedrdquo WHOs response to the pandemicSome experts criticized the panel for failing to hold WHO and others accountable for their actions during Covid19 describing that as ldquoan abdication of responsibilityrdquoAlso Read Using term Indian variant for B1617 strain has no basis WHO has not done so Health MinistryLawrence Gostin of Georgetown University said the panel fails to call out bad actors like China perpetuating the dysfunctional WHO tradition of diplomacy over frankness transparency and accountabilityrdquoThe panel was led by former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark who were tapped by WHO last year to examine the UN agencys response to Covid19 after bowing to a request from member countriesldquoThe situation we find ourselves in today could have been preventedrdquo Johnson Sirleaf saidBeyond the call to boost WHOs ability to investigate outbreaks the panel made an array of recommendations such as urging the health agency and the World Trade Organization to convene a meeting of vaccineproducing countries and manufacturers to quickly reach deals about voluntary licensing and technology transfer in an effort to boost the worlds global supply of coronavirus shotsThe panel also suggested that WHOs directorgeneral currently Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of Ethiopia should be limited to a single sevenyear term As it stands the WHO chief is elected to a fiveyear term that can be renewed onceThe suggestion to limit the tenure of WHOs top leader appeared in part designed to ease the intense political pressure that WHO directorgenerals can face Last year the Trump administration repeatedly inveighed against the agencys handling of the pandemic taking aim at WHOs alleged collusion with ChinaAn Associated Press investigation in June found WHO repeatedly lauded China in public while officials privately complained that Chinese officials stalled on sharing critical epidemic information with them including the new virus genetic sequenceClark said the global diseases surveillance system needed to be overhauled with WHOs role strengthenedldquoWHO should have the powers necessary to investigate outbreaks of concern speedily guaranteed rights of access and with the ability to publish information without waiting for member state approvalrdquo she saidSophie Harman a professor of international politics at Queen Mary University of London said the panels recommendations were unlikely to be entirely welcomed by WHOs member countries and thus unlikely to be implementedldquoWhich states would actually allow WHO in to investigate an outbreak without their permissionrdquo she askedMany doctors fatigued after treating Covid19 patients said any reform of WHO should include an evaluation of its ability to properly assess the science of an emerging health threatDavid Tomlinson a British physician who has been campaigning for health workers during the pandemic in the UK said WHO ldquofailed on the most fundamental aspectrdquo in its scientific leadership of Covid19 He said WHOs failure to acknowledge that much coronavirus transmission happens in the air has ldquoamplified the pandemicrdquoWHO has said coronavirus spread can happen in limited circumstances in the air but recommended against maskwearing for the general public until last JuneClare Wenham a professor of global health policy at the London School of Economics said the report overall was good but questioned its support for the UNbacked program for coronavirus vaccines called COVAX which relies on a ldquodonationrdquo model Of the millions of Covid19 vaccines administered to date developing countries have received just 7 per cent WHO said this weekldquoCOVAX is not addressing one of the main problems which is we need to rapidly ramp up production of the vaccines and distribution of vaccinesrdquo she said And its still working on the model of a finite number thats only able be produced by a certain few manufacturing locationsrdquoOverall she suggested politicians needed to budge more than technical institutions like WHOldquoThe problems arent technical The problems are political The problems are about like How do you get governments to behave and think about things beyond their own borders Wenham said ldquoI dont think that has been resolvedrdquoThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever