GENEVA (AN) — The World Health Assembly took steps to better respond to emergencies and keep an adequate budget, but one of its biggest challenges – a treaty to deal with future pandemics – has yet to be negotiated among nations.
The 76th assembly of the World Health Organization's governing body, representing 194 nations, ended on Tuesday after approving measures ranging from non-communicable diseases, disabilities and drowning prevention to Indigenous people's health, maternal and child health care and rehabilitation.
WHO's Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called the US$6.83 billion budget approved for 2024-25, up 11% from the previous US$6.12 billion budget, a "step in the direction of a stronger and more effective and empowered WHO" because it includes a one-fifth increase in countries' assessed contributions.
The U.N. health agency has two main sources of money. One is assessed contributions, which have made up around 14% of its budget. These come from yearly compulsory dues that the 194 member nations pay according to their GDP.
The other 86% of the budget, usually earmarked for projects, comes from member nations' voluntary contributions, philanthropic foundations and other donors.
One new measure directs Tedros to develop by 2026 a "global action plan for the health of Indigenous peoples," whose diverse populations commonly have lower life expectancy, and suffer from a higher prevalence of diseases and adverse health conditions, such as diabetes, maternal and infant mortality and malnutrition.
For the first time, the assembly passed a measure that addresses chemical and plastic waste as a health issue. The non-binding resolution calls for WHO to generate more data about the health effects and for Tedros to prepare a report that identifies any data gaps.
The assembly also resolved to increase global access to rehabilitation services such as physical therapy and prosthetics. An estimated 2.4 billion people may need such services, but in many nations fewer than half the population have access to them.
'A generational opportunity'
Later this year, Tedros said, the United Nations' high-level meetings on universal health coverage, tuberculosis and pandemic preparedness present the world with "major opportunities to catalyze much-needed political commitment."
"Likewise, the continuing negotiations on the pandemic accord and amendments to the International Health Regulations are an unprecedented opportunity to learn from the mistakes of the COVID-19 pandemic and ensure they are not repeated," he told the assembly as it closed. "Your challenge as member states is to negotiate a strong accord for approval just twelve months from now."
Negotiators are expected to draft a pandemic accord for approval by next year’s health assembly in May 2024. The first draft proposed letting WHO hand out a fifth of all the vaccines and other products the world needs and easing intellectual property restrictions to provide more equitable access to vaccines and therapies.
WHO’s International Health Regulations provide legally binding rights and obligations towards disease outbreaks and other acute public health risks among 196 nations. Tedros said he sees "a generational opportunity" that must be seized.
"We are the generation that lived through the COVID-19 pandemic, so we must be the generation that learns the lessons it taught us, and makes the changes to keep future generations safer," he said. "This is what COVID-19 has taught us: that pathogens have no regard for the lines humans draw on maps, nor for our politics, religions or anything else that we use to divide ourselves from each other."
