<h6><strong>Julio García/Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>The Spanish government celebrated this Wednesday the agreement reached by the World Health Organization (WHO) member states to address future pandemics and avoid the situation experienced during COVID-19.</strong></h4> "Today we take a great step for global health with the agreement on the Pandemic Treaty," wrote Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on social media. "In the face of global challenges that know no borders, multilateralism is our best bet," he added. "This is historic," wrote Health Minister Mónica García. "The WHO member states have agreed to ensure that the next pandemic catches us better prepared and with rules on how to help us overcome it," she continued. "Months of hard work have borne fruit and demonstrate that the WHO is more necessary than ever," she concluded. For his part, the Secretary of State for Health, Javier Padilla, also welcomed the news, stating that the WHO is "more necessary than ever" and thanking the "courageous and not always easy positions" of those who represented Spain in the negotiations. The WHO announced early Wednesday morning that the 190 member states had reached an agreement on the first-ever global Pandemic Treaty, after three years of debate. The agreement, which must still be ratified in May during the World Health Assembly (the organization's decision-making body), focuses on improving coordination among countries and promoting a more equitable distribution of available resources in the face of a future pandemic through prevention, preparedness, and response mechanisms. However, the text has not completely satisfied low- and middle-income countries, as part of the agreements only commits the wealthiest states "on a voluntary basis." “The nations of the world made history today in Geneva,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the WHO. “By reaching consensus on the Pandemic Agreement, they not only established a generational agreement for a safer world, but also demonstrated that multilateralism remains relevant and that, in our divided world, nations can still work together to find common ground and a common response to shared threats,” he continued. “I thank WHO Member States and their negotiating teams for their foresight, commitment, and tireless work. We look forward to the World Health Assembly’s consideration of the agreement and, hopefully, its adoption,” he concluded.
