Public Health Experts Weigh In on WHO Pandemic Treaty Amid Growing Support for COVID Lab Leak Theory

Recent scrutiny of the World Health Organization (WHO), and how it handled the COVID-19 Pandemic, has intensified.

This week, the World Health Assembly—the WHO’s decision-making body—began considering new ways to govern international responses for preventing disease outbreaks. A draft in its early stages was presented to the Assembly. It includes binding and nonbinding language about how countries handle diseases within their own borders, as well how they coordinate with other international partners. Article 15 in the draft document.pdf() specifically refers to the WHO as “directing and coordinating authority on international health work,” The WHO Director-General will be the person to declare pandemics, according to the draft document. In the WHO draft document, wealthy developed countries are asked to keep a portion of their diagnostic tools and treatment methods for developing countries.

Some opponents of the WHO’s proposal for an international pandemic respond network are concerned that it would force participating countries to surrender a certain degree of sovereignty, resources and decision-making freedom to a global entity.

“It [the WHO] funds a bureaucracy writ large: A new organization, a governing board, which would presumably be under WHO, requires countries to give a certain percentage of their health budgets to emergencies and sets up a supply network for the WHO,” David Bell, who is a former WHO staffer and a physician in public health, spoke in an interview to NTD News.

It is stated in the WHO draft document “reaffirms” While the Convention would not affect the sovereignty or financial resources of countries, it would oblige them to provide these funds in the event of pandemics. The WHO, however, could declare pandemics.

The document defines a “pandemic” As “the global spread of a pathogen or variant that infects human populations with limited or no immunity through sustained and high transmissibility from person to person, overwhelming health systems with severe morbidity and high mortality, and causing social and economic disruptions, all of which require effective national and global collaboration and coordination for its control.”

According to the proposed treaty, participating countries will provide financial support for the international response framework to pandemics and create regulatory measures in their countries. “accelerate the process of approving and licensing pandemic-related products for emergency use in a timely manner”—including waiving intellectual property rights on medical products that are developed to address pandemics.

Bell raised concerns about the WHO’s capability to declare pandemics in order to trigger sharing resources and funding. This would be an internal conflict.

“[The global pandemic response proposals] put [pandemic response measures] in the hands of an individual and a bureaucracy