WHO / INTERNATIONAL TREATY PANDEMIC RESPONSE
30-Mar-2021
00:05:04
The international community should work together “towards a new international treaty for pandemic preparedness and response” to build a more robust global health architecture that will protect future generations, world leaders said in a commentary published today in several newspapers around the world. WHO
Subject to the Terms of Usages of UNifeed, UNifeed materials are available free of charge for news purposes only. UNifeed materials may not be sold or redistributed to third parties without the prior written consent of the UN or the UN entity which is source of the UNifeed material. All users of UNifeed materials must provide due credit to the United Nations or any UN entity source(s) in their use and broadcast of UNifeed materials.
Size
Format
Acquire
DESCRIPTION
STORY: WHO / INTERNATIONAL TREATY PANDEMIC RESPONSE
TRT: 5:08
SOURCE: WHO
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH /NATS
DATELINE: 30 MARCH 2021, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
TRT: 5:08
SOURCE: WHO
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH /NATS
DATELINE: 30 MARCH 2021, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
SHOTLIST
1.Wide shot, panel of speakers in the press room
2.SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General:
"This powerful idea, of a treaty rooted in WHO, has resulted in the joint statement issued today and published in major newspapers around the world and in multiple languages, which has been signed, so far, by twenty-five heads of state and heads of government. They represent a diversity of countries, from north and south, east and west."
3.Wide shot, panel of speakers in the press room
4.SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General:
"The idea behind the proposal for such as treaty is to systematically tackle the gaps exposed by COVID-19. The world has come together as never before to take on this crisis. Now, we must leverage the new opportunities for global cooperation and innovation."
5.Wide shot, panel of speakers in the press room
6.SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General:
"This treaty would strengthen the implementation of the International Health Regulations, and critically, it would also provide a framework for international cooperation and solidarity. The key issues it would address could include building resilience to pandemics and other global health emergencies, with robust national and global preparedness systems; ensuring timely and equitable access to pandemic countermeasures, including vaccines; supporting sustainable funding and capacity for prevention, detection, and responses to outbreaks; and promote mutual trust."
7.Wide shot, panel of speakers in the press room
8.SOUNDBITE (English) Charles Michel, European Council President:
"Today, we are calling for an international treaty on pandemics. The COVID-19 pandemic is indeed much more than just a health issue. It has stretched across every sector of our societies, highlighting our strength and exposing our weaknesses. And above all, it has taught us one brutal lesson: no country, no continent can defeat a pandemic alone. It requires a global approach, the 'us' rather than the 'me', and a collective commitment at the highest political level."
9.Wide shot, panel of speakers in the press room
10.SOUNDBITE (English) Charles Michel, European Council President:
"And through this treaty, our main goal is to foster a comprehensive approach to better predict, prevent and respond to pandemics, to strengthen global capacities and resilience, to ensure fair access to medical solutions, and to bolster international alert systems, data sharing and cutting edge medical research."
11.Wide shot, panel of speakers in the press room
12.SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Jaouad Mahjour, Assistant Director-General, Emergency Preparedness and IHR, WHO:
"The IHR is a really very powerful legal instrument for preparedness, for alert and sharing information on how to break an epidemic and other health crises, and also for travel measures. The IHR, when it was designed in 2005, doesn't cover some critical elements of the response like previously said, the supply chain is not covered by the IHR, the sharing of the virus (genome sequencing), the research and development, which is the key to discover, and to new control measures. And the treaty may cover this area to complement the role of the IHR as the legal instrument for preparedness and alert."
13.Wide shot, panel of speakers in the press room
14.SOUNDBITE (English) Steven Solomon, WHO Principal Legal Officer:
"The IHRs themselves are rooted in the WHO Constitution. The IHRs were created by the World Health Assembly. The proposal here is for a new treaty also to be rooted in the WHO Constitution, to be created by the World Health Assembly, the 194 member states who compose the World Health Assembly. When the countries drafted the IHRs in 2005, they included a specific provision. I'll get very concrete here for a moment, a specific provision that called for the possibility of special treaties to facilitate implementation of the IHRs themselves. So indeed, this idea, this possibility of a treaty that could complement, could support IHR implementation was actually built into that regime. Very important, very important for coherence between the IHRs and any future instrument that it all works based on the principles contained in the WHO Constitution, principles of health for all, principles of non-discrimination."
15.Wide shot, panel of speakers in the press room
16.Close up, WHO Seal on a wall
2.SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General:
"This powerful idea, of a treaty rooted in WHO, has resulted in the joint statement issued today and published in major newspapers around the world and in multiple languages, which has been signed, so far, by twenty-five heads of state and heads of government. They represent a diversity of countries, from north and south, east and west."
3.Wide shot, panel of speakers in the press room
4.SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General:
"The idea behind the proposal for such as treaty is to systematically tackle the gaps exposed by COVID-19. The world has come together as never before to take on this crisis. Now, we must leverage the new opportunities for global cooperation and innovation."
5.Wide shot, panel of speakers in the press room
6.SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General:
"This treaty would strengthen the implementation of the International Health Regulations, and critically, it would also provide a framework for international cooperation and solidarity. The key issues it would address could include building resilience to pandemics and other global health emergencies, with robust national and global preparedness systems; ensuring timely and equitable access to pandemic countermeasures, including vaccines; supporting sustainable funding and capacity for prevention, detection, and responses to outbreaks; and promote mutual trust."
7.Wide shot, panel of speakers in the press room
8.SOUNDBITE (English) Charles Michel, European Council President:
"Today, we are calling for an international treaty on pandemics. The COVID-19 pandemic is indeed much more than just a health issue. It has stretched across every sector of our societies, highlighting our strength and exposing our weaknesses. And above all, it has taught us one brutal lesson: no country, no continent can defeat a pandemic alone. It requires a global approach, the 'us' rather than the 'me', and a collective commitment at the highest political level."
9.Wide shot, panel of speakers in the press room
10.SOUNDBITE (English) Charles Michel, European Council President:
"And through this treaty, our main goal is to foster a comprehensive approach to better predict, prevent and respond to pandemics, to strengthen global capacities and resilience, to ensure fair access to medical solutions, and to bolster international alert systems, data sharing and cutting edge medical research."
11.Wide shot, panel of speakers in the press room
12.SOUNDBITE (English) Dr Jaouad Mahjour, Assistant Director-General, Emergency Preparedness and IHR, WHO:
"The IHR is a really very powerful legal instrument for preparedness, for alert and sharing information on how to break an epidemic and other health crises, and also for travel measures. The IHR, when it was designed in 2005, doesn't cover some critical elements of the response like previously said, the supply chain is not covered by the IHR, the sharing of the virus (genome sequencing), the research and development, which is the key to discover, and to new control measures. And the treaty may cover this area to complement the role of the IHR as the legal instrument for preparedness and alert."
13.Wide shot, panel of speakers in the press room
14.SOUNDBITE (English) Steven Solomon, WHO Principal Legal Officer:
"The IHRs themselves are rooted in the WHO Constitution. The IHRs were created by the World Health Assembly. The proposal here is for a new treaty also to be rooted in the WHO Constitution, to be created by the World Health Assembly, the 194 member states who compose the World Health Assembly. When the countries drafted the IHRs in 2005, they included a specific provision. I'll get very concrete here for a moment, a specific provision that called for the possibility of special treaties to facilitate implementation of the IHRs themselves. So indeed, this idea, this possibility of a treaty that could complement, could support IHR implementation was actually built into that regime. Very important, very important for coherence between the IHRs and any future instrument that it all works based on the principles contained in the WHO Constitution, principles of health for all, principles of non-discrimination."
15.Wide shot, panel of speakers in the press room
16.Close up, WHO Seal on a wall
STORYLINE
The international community should work together “towards a new international treaty for pandemic preparedness and response” to build a more robust global health architecture that will protect future generations, world leaders said in a commentary published today (30 Mar) in several newspapers around the world.
Twenty-five heads of government and international agencies come together in a joint call to signal high-level political action needed to protect the world from future health crises.
“There will be other pandemics and other major health emergencies. No single government or multilateral agency can address this threat alone,” the leaders say in their article. “The question is not if, but when. Together, we must be better prepared to predict, prevent, detect, assess and effectively respond to pandemics in a highly coordinated fashion. The COVID-19 pandemic has been a stark and painful reminder that nobody is safe until everyone is safe.”
The main goal of a new international treaty for pandemic preparedness and response would be to foster a comprehensive, multi-sectoral approach to strengthen national, regional and global capacities and resilience to future pandemics. This is an opportunity for the world to come together as a global community for peaceful cooperation that extends beyond this crisis.
According to the article, the treaty “would be rooted in the constitution of the World Health Organization, drawing in other relevant organizations key to this endeavour, in support of the principle of health for all. Existing global health instruments, especially the International Health Regulations, would underpin such a treaty, ensuring a firm and tested foundation on which we can build and improve.”
The commentary has been signed by J. V. Bainimarama, Prime Minister of Fiji; Prayut Chan-o-cha, Prime Minister of Thailand; António Luís Santos da Costa, Prime Minister of Portugal; Mario Draghi, Prime Minister of Italy; Klaus Iohannis, President of Romania; Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda; Uhuru Kenyatta, President of Kenya; Emmanuel Macron, President of France; Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany; Charles Michel, President of the European Council; Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Prime Minister of Greece; Moon Jae-in, President of the Republic of Korea; Sebastián Piñera, President of Chile; Carlos Alvarado Quesada, President of Costa Rica; Edi Rama, Prime Minister of Albania; Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa; Keith Rowley, Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago; Mark Rutte, Prime Minister of the Netherlands; Kais Saied, President of Tunisia; Macky Sall, President of Senegal; Pedro Sánchez, Prime Minister of Spain; Erna Solberg, Prime Miniser of Norway; Aleksandar Vučić, President of Serbia; Joko Widodo, President of Indonesia; Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine; Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization.
Twenty-five heads of government and international agencies come together in a joint call to signal high-level political action needed to protect the world from future health crises.
“There will be other pandemics and other major health emergencies. No single government or multilateral agency can address this threat alone,” the leaders say in their article. “The question is not if, but when. Together, we must be better prepared to predict, prevent, detect, assess and effectively respond to pandemics in a highly coordinated fashion. The COVID-19 pandemic has been a stark and painful reminder that nobody is safe until everyone is safe.”
The main goal of a new international treaty for pandemic preparedness and response would be to foster a comprehensive, multi-sectoral approach to strengthen national, regional and global capacities and resilience to future pandemics. This is an opportunity for the world to come together as a global community for peaceful cooperation that extends beyond this crisis.
According to the article, the treaty “would be rooted in the constitution of the World Health Organization, drawing in other relevant organizations key to this endeavour, in support of the principle of health for all. Existing global health instruments, especially the International Health Regulations, would underpin such a treaty, ensuring a firm and tested foundation on which we can build and improve.”
The commentary has been signed by J. V. Bainimarama, Prime Minister of Fiji; Prayut Chan-o-cha, Prime Minister of Thailand; António Luís Santos da Costa, Prime Minister of Portugal; Mario Draghi, Prime Minister of Italy; Klaus Iohannis, President of Romania; Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda; Uhuru Kenyatta, President of Kenya; Emmanuel Macron, President of France; Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany; Charles Michel, President of the European Council; Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Prime Minister of Greece; Moon Jae-in, President of the Republic of Korea; Sebastián Piñera, President of Chile; Carlos Alvarado Quesada, President of Costa Rica; Edi Rama, Prime Minister of Albania; Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa; Keith Rowley, Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago; Mark Rutte, Prime Minister of the Netherlands; Kais Saied, President of Tunisia; Macky Sall, President of Senegal; Pedro Sánchez, Prime Minister of Spain; Erna Solberg, Prime Miniser of Norway; Aleksandar Vučić, President of Serbia; Joko Widodo, President of Indonesia; Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine; Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization.
Category
Topical Subjects
Personal Subjects
Corporate Subjects
Source
Alternate Title
unifeed210330g