International Health Regulations

• As the final Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) meeting of the World Health Organization (WHO) Pandemic Agreement approaches, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and the AHF Global Public Health Institute are voicing significant concerns about the April 16, 2024, Proposal for the WHO Pandemic Agreement .
• In addition to the GPMB and the IPPPR, the Panel for a Global Public Health Convention and Spark Street Advisors have also emphasized the critical need for independent monitoring.
• Empty handshakes in Geneva will not prevent another global health disaster, nor will it keep countries from trampling over each other when the next pandemic comes.
• To learn more about the AHF Global Public Health Institute, visit https://ahfinstitute.org/ .

• However, it would be a mistake to assume that this is a mere formality.
• A PHEIC, like the one adopted for COVID-19 on Jan. 30, 2020, is declared if a public health event is determined to constitute:

• A PHEIC means the WHO is sounding the loudest possible alarm to national governments to act together with urgency.
• However, the heightened state of emergency under a PHEIC is not meant to be sustained indefinitely.

Significance of the end of the COVID-19 PHEIC

• Moreover, the phrase “no one is safe until everyone is safe” may have become a familiar tagline during the pandemic.
• Yet, many people, mostly in low- and middle-income countries, still struggle to access COVID-19 vaccines, diagnostics and treatments.
• Second, the standing down of the PHEIC declaration is accompanied by an understandable desire — and necessity — to “move on” from COVID-19 after three difficult years.
• The lack of real-world authority by the WHO to enforce the legally binding IHR has become abundantly clear.

Global co-ordination fell short

• Still, what ensued fell far short of a co-ordinated global effort.
• Read more:
  COVID-19 vaccine inequity allowed Omicron to emerge

  The need for collective action during global public health emergencies like COVID-19 has only been reinforced by the past three years.

• Additionally, travel measures implemented in response to COVID-19, and in previous PHEICs, fell inequitably upon different population groups.
• Meanwhile, a new pandemic may already be on the horizon as the global and interspecies spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza is raising growing alarm.

• The WHO Director General originally declared that the COVID-19 pandemic constituted a PHEIC on January 30, 2020.
• Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Government of Canada's top priority has been protecting the health and safety of all Canadians.
• Even though the WHO Director General determined the current COVID-19 situation no longer constitutes a PHEIC, the Government of Canada recognizes that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is still circulating across Canada and worldwide.
• PHAC will continue to provide public updates as new information related to our domestic situation arises.

• The INB’s WHO CA+ will be up for consideration at its fourth meeting on February 27 through March 3.
• While the Zero Draft includes several of the recommendations in the article, the WHO CA+ lacks an adequate proposal for an effective governing body with appropriate mechanisms to promote compliance.
• Prior to the publication of the Zero Draft, global public health experts called for the creation of an independent body that sits above or outside of the governance structure of the WHO.
• Too many countries went their own way and ignored WHO recommendations,” said Dr. Jorge Saavedra, Executive Director of the AHF Global Public Health Institute.