International

New WHO panel to speed up pandemic response, address shortcomings

GENEVA (Reuters) – The World Well being Group’s governing board agreed on Monday to type a brand new committee to assist velocity up its response to well being emergencies like COVID-19.

The U.N. well being company confronted criticism for its dealing with of the COVID-19 pandemic, together with the tempo of its response to early circumstances which will have delayed detection and helped the virus to unfold. Some illness consultants say that governments and the WHO should keep away from repeating such early missteps with different outbreaks like monkeypox.

The decision, handed unanimously on the 34-member Government Board’s annual assembly, will type a brand new ‘Standing Committee on Well being Emergency Prevention, Preparedness and Response’ to assist tackle a number of the perceived shortcomings.

Formal WHO conferences are typically spaced months aside and, underneath the brand new initiative, the brand new physique would meet instantly after the Director-Basic declares a Public Well being Emergency of Worldwide Concern (PHEIC) – a choice that triggers requires additional funding, public well being measures and a sequence of suggestions geared toward controlling illness unfold.

“This was in all probability one of many weakest factors over the last pandemic that member states or governing our bodies did not have the chance to have quick consultations after this PHEIC of the final pandemic was declared,” Austria’s Clemens Martin Auer, who proposed the decision, instructed the Government Board.

He added that the brand new committee would additionally conduct oversight of the WHO’s well being emergencies programme in bizarre instances to make sure it’s match to reply.

“I believe the standing committee might be an indispensable a part of the brand new world structure on well being emergency,” he added. America, the European Union, the UK and Japan had been among the many co-sponsors of the initiative.

(Reporting by Emma Farge; Enhancing by Nick Macfie)



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