Global ‘pandemic treaty’ proposed amid China’s mistrust

LONDON – A global ‘pandemic treaty’ has been proposed in an effort to ensure more transparency about future pandemics amid discomfort over China’s unwillingness to share information about the coronavirus outbreak.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is among those calling for an international treaty on pandemics in which countries will agree to share information on outbreaks of viruses and infectious diseases.

Johnson backed the proposal on Monday after the United Kingdom and the United States expressed concern about the level of access to a World Health Organization mission to China aimed at discovering the origin of the coronavirus that appeared in Wuhan in late 2019. .

“I think what the world should see is a general agreement on how we track zoonotic pandemic data, we want zoonotic research buttons around the world, and we want a general agreement on transparency,” Johnson said in a press release. said.

‘I think one of the attractive ideas we’d seen over the last few months was a proposal for a global pandemic treaty, so that the signatory countries make sure that they contribute all the data they have, and that we are able to is around the bottom of what happened and prevents it from happening again, ”he said. This is ‘the wise thing to do’.

Johnson is not the first to call for more transparency around disease outbreaks. In December, European Council President Charles Michel called for an “international pandemic treaty within the framework of the WHO”.

“The number of epidemics has increased in recent decades,” Michel said at the time. “We knew the world was not immune to a major pandemic. Yet we were caught off guard. It is a form of failure, and we will have to learn the lessons and draw the conclusions from it.” He tweeted on the subject last week and welcomed Johnson’s comments this week.

Fear of transparency over pandemics comes amid concerns that the WHO’s fact-finding mission could only go to China last month, more than a year after the outbreak of the coronavirus in Wuhan, and only after lengthy negotiations with Beijing to allow it to investigate. The investigators did not have full access to data that could better understand the origin of Covid-19.

After four weeks of investigation, the WTO mission said last week that the virus was ‘most likely’ from animals and spread to humans, rejecting a laboratory leak theory. One member of the WTO delegation has since said that China refuses to give them access to all the raw data they have requested. Dominic Dwyer, an Australian expert on infectious diseases and a member of the WHO delegation, told Reuters on Saturday that China had denied access to raw data requested on early infections.

The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times also reported on China’s refusal. The country’s foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters, but China had previously defended its cooperation with the WHO.

The United Kingdom and the United States have expressed what the White House describes as ‘deep concern’ about the way in which the findings of the WTO’s Covid-19 report were communicated.

White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement on Saturday that it was imperative that the WTO report was independent and free from ‘change by the Chinese government’.

“To better understand this pandemic and prepare for the next one, China must make its data available from the earliest days of the outbreak. From now on, all countries, including China, must participate in a transparent and robust health process. ‘Emergencies – so that the world learns as much as possible,’ he said.

The British Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, expressed sentiment on Sunday, telling the BBC that Britain was ‘concerned’ that they were getting full co-operation and that they were getting the answers they needed, and therefore we would insist on full to have access. ‘

The spokesman added that “tracing origin is a complex scientific issue involving many countries and regions, and it must be done in collaboration with global scientists.” He said the Chinese government “strongly supported and assisted the WTO mission.”

On Monday, the British prime minister said he thought it was “fairly obvious that most evidence seems to indicate that the disease originated in Wuhan.”

“That’s why I think we should all see as much as possible about how this can happen, the zoonotic questions that people ask. I think we need as much data as possible,” Johnson said.

The UK currently holds the presidency of the Group of Seven, an intergovernmental organization that includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US, and looks set to use a meeting on Friday to draft a treaty.

The British government said in a statement on Saturday that Johnson “will call for a new, global approach to pandemics that learns lessons from the division that characterized the initial international response to the coronavirus pandemic.”

“International pandemic preparedness will be a top priority for the G7 presidency,” Johnson said. Johnson would like to work with fellow G-7 leaders to implement a five-point plan announced at the UN General Assembly last year.

The five-point plan includes a global network of zoonotic research hubs, the development of global manufacturing capabilities for treatments and vaccines, the design of a global early warning system for pandemics, the agreement with global protocols for a future health emergency and reducing trade barriers. “