Han Seung Soo
Former Prime Minister of South Korea and Vice President of Club de Madrid
Having largely avoided widespread COVID-19 infections in South Korea since the start of the pandemic, the country now leads the world in new cases reported in the last week. South Korea is not alone. From Hong Kong to New Zealand, many countries that have managed to contain the surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths since 2020 are now experiencing unprecedented spikes.
The past few weeks have once again served as a testament to the global nature of the pandemic: no country is safe until all countries are safe from the virus. While some countries are re-establishing closures, others are taking their foot off the gas or simply learning to live with the virus. With a highly transmissible virus capable of crossing borders in our globalized world, this kind of piecemeal approach is not working. Even before the Omicron variant spread around the world, the fragmentation of pandemic preparedness and response efforts internationally and by countries led to millions of preventable deaths and trillions of dollars in losses.
More than ever, the world needs a new international system that fosters global solidarity in times of crisis and enables countries at all income levels to detect, alert and respond to health threats before they become pandemics. As many countries find themselves in the midst of new COVID-19 outbreaks, it is time to plan ahead and ensure that the next response is cohesive, equitable and effective. We cannot continue the global cycle of crisis and complacency, especially when we have the tools to correct it.
In a new Call to Action endorsed by the Club de Madrid, the Panel for a Global Public Health Convention has proposed a bold way forward to address the gaps in the current order and dramatically strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response systems through a new Pandemic Treaty or Convention. The new set of recommendations calls for a positively incentivized system governed at the level of heads of state in which compliance with agreed-upon preparedness standards, alert protocols, and response efforts would be overseen by an independent monitoring and evaluation body independent of the World Health Organization (WHO).
While WHO’s leadership in setting international standards for preparedness and response and in supporting countries to achieve targets is vital and should be strengthened, an independent agency would add an additional layer of accountability. With a mandate to call and recall countries based on performance in pandemic preparedness, detection and response, an independent body could help avoid the ad hoc approach adopted during COVID-19 by holding countries accountable.
Establishing this accountability within countries and at the international level is essential to a Pandemic Treaty. To take decisive action during a crisis, it must be determined who should take what action and when. This includes responsibility for preparedness; transparent, real-time reporting of health threats; implementation of evidence-based public health measures; sharing of information, including genetic sequences, specimens and samples; equitable distribution of pandemic assets; as well as a fully funded funding mechanism.
South Korea learned many of these lessons following the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak in 2015. The government took responsibility and took steps to strengthen its pandemic preparedness and response efforts by investing in disease surveillance and reporting systems, building appropriate isolation units, increasing training of healthcare workers in crisis response and the use of PPE, as well as practicing outbreak simulation responses at the local level to determine who does what and when.
This type of preparedness does not come for free. Although trivial compared to the trillions of dollars that have been needed to contain COVID-19 and its economic consequences, it is estimated that billions of dollars will be needed to fund adequate preparedness measures in many low- and middle-income countries. The Group therefore urges that a new Pandemic Treaty include a multilateral funding mechanism to ensure that all countries can access predictable and sustainable funding without incurring catastrophic debt.
Finally, a Treaty must ensure that all tools and countermeasures to contain the outbreak, such as PPE, tests and vaccines, are considered global public goods and are financed, produced and distributed as such. The scramble for pandemic supplies, such as vaccines, continues to hold the entire world back and has left large swaths of the planet vulnerable to preventable deaths.
Rampant vaccine inequality and recent spikes in COVID-19 cases across the region should serve as a sobering reminder that our current system is not working. By joining an accountable Pandemic Treaty, there is an opportunity to correct this situation and create a system capable of stopping outbreaks in their tracks and ensuring an equitable response when necessary. Let’s seize this opportunity to implement evidence-based solutions, learn from the past two years, and build a healthier, safer world.
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