The co-chair of the international panel,former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark,said simply:“There is no time to waste.”
The report of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response also urges world governments toallow WHO infection experts immediate access to inspect outbreaks anywhere in the world in an effort to prevent future cover-ups and delays.
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“Another zoonotic disease emerging is inevitable. The question is whether we have the tools in place for aggressive containment,” Ms Clark toldThe Sydney Morning Heraldand The Age. The international panel of 13 eminent clinicians and former leaders calls on world leaders to meet at the United Nations General Assembly in September to start the process.
“If not now,when?” Ms Clark said. “If not today’s leaders,who?” The panel’s report,Covid-19:Make it the Last Pandemic,says that the World Health Organisation was too slow and too meek in declaring a pandemic last year,and that too many governments dithered instead of acting to contain the virus.
The panel points out that 11 high-level commissions published 16 reports after the outbreak of the deadly H1N1 swine flu in 2009,but that none had their recommendations adopted in full.
The Independent Panel says that presidents and prime ministers should take direct ownership of a new system of surveillance and prevention because “pandemics pose potential existential threats to humanity and must be elevated to the highest level”. Leaders should create and take membership of a Global Health Threats Council to drive reform.