AHF: Lancet Paper Makes the Case for a Global Public Health Convention

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the world’s largest provider of HIV/AIDS care globally, marked today the publication of a peer-reviewed research article titled “A Global Public Health Convention for the 21st Century” in the prestigious Lancet Public Health journal.

The paper presents 10 recommendations aimed at transforming the global health system so that it can become more transparent, accountable, and cooperative when responding to international health emergencies like COVID-19. To achieve these goals, the article calls for the ratification of a new convention or treaty on global public health. Full text of the published study is freely available here via The Lancet website.

The study was co-authored by 21 global public health thinkers, including AHF President Michael Weinstein and Dr. Jorge Saavedra, Executive Director of the AHF Global Public Health Institute at the University of Miami. The study was conducted by the University of Miami with financial support from AHF.

“AHF has been sounding the alarm on the poor state of global public health emergency preparedness and calling for a Global Public Health Convention since 2015. Sadly, even after Ebola and Zika, few heeded the warning until it was too late with COVID-19,” said AHF President Michael Weinstein. “In fact, research for The Lancet article began in 2019, months before COVID-19 was publicly acknowledged. The time has finally come for the world to elevate global public health to the same level of deference and multilateral cooperation as has been reserved for sectors such as air traffic control, nuclear nonproliferation, and international trade. We hope this paper will lay the groundwork for achieving lasting change in how the world fights and prepares for pandemics.”

The study is a product of collaboration between AHF Global Public Health Institute at the University of Miami and the university’s department of Public Health Science. The research team synthesized the recommendations by conducting and analyzing in-depth interviews with 29 leading experts in a diverse range of disciplines, including public health, public policy, medicine, diplomacy, and economics.

“Many recommendations have been produced over the years about how to prepare and respond to pandemics, but we can see now, with over three million people dead and millions more suffering illness and economic devastation, those recommendations tragically fell short, mainly because they were not fully implemented,” said Dr. Jorge Saavedra. “From the beginning, when we set out to do our study, which The Lancet has now published, we approached the project with implementation in mind – we were not planning to stop at publication. We are determined to see these recommendations incorporated into a Global Public Health Convention at the highest levels of government by heads of state, so in many ways, our work is just beginning. We cannot allow another pandemic to go by without doing everything we can to be better prepared for the next one.”

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, currently provides medical care and/or services to over 1.5 million clients in 45 countries worldwide in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Region and Europe. To learn more about AHF, please visit our website: www.aidshealth.org, find us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/aidshealth and follow us on Twitter: @aidshealthcare and Instagram: @aidshealthcare

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