The outline of an essential global pandemic treaty

Source: The post is based on an article “The outline of an essential global pandemic treaty” published in The Hindu on 9^th September 2022.

Syllabus: GS 2 – Bilateral agreements involving India

News: COVID-19 was one of the most severe pandemics the world has seen in the last 100 years. The impact of the pandemic can be seen even now and an effective global treaty is required to face future challenges.

What were the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic?

Health care system

Health-care systems have been utilized beyond their capacity.

There has been gross health inequality in distribution of vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics across the world.

Low-income countries

The low-income countries have faced major impact of the pandemic.

The socioeconomic consequences of the pandemic are irreversible in these countries.

Only 3% of people in low-income countries had been vaccinated with at least one dose when compared to 60.18% in high-income countries.

The international target to vaccinate 70% of the world’s population by mid-2022 was missed. Because poorer countries were left behind when vaccines were rolled out.

Pharma companies

The pandemic has caused enormous increase in the wealth of pharma companies (Pfizer, BioNTech, and Moderna) because they had monopoly over the Covid vaccines.

There have also been other reasons of increasing inequality across the world such as inadequate precautionary measures taken by countries, lack of interest in giving funds for developing coronavirus vaccines, etc.

What can be the course of action?

The creation of Global Pandemic Treaty has been proposed at the Special Session of the World Health Assembly (WHASS) to mitigate future challenges. The declaration of monkey pox as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) has highlighted this need.

The global treaty should include the following features:

First, a treaty should cover important aspects of data sharing and genome sequencing of emerging viruses.

Second, it should formally commit governments to implement an early warning system and a properly funded rapid response mechanism.

Third, it should ask nations to agree on a set of common measures that are related to health investments with an aim to reduce the public-private sector gap.

Fourth, a global pandemic treaty should not only reduce socioeconomic inequalities but also enhance global pandemic preparedness for future health emergencies.

What role has been played by India in the pandemic?

India has played an important role worldwide in tackling the pandemic.

First, India never restricted the shipment of vaccines even when it experienced shortage at the domestic level.

• India has shipped 594.35 lakh doses of Made in India vaccines which is an example of global cooperation.

Second, India also acted as a global leader in dealing with vaccine patent issue with major pharma companies across the world.

• It recommended World Trade Organization (WTO) to allow all countries to choose to neither grant nor enforce patents on covid-19 drugs and technologies until global herd immunity is achieved.

India currently produces 60% of the world’s vaccines and is said to account for 60%-80% of the United Nations’ annual vaccine procurement.