Thursday, March 28

A ‘paradigm shift’ in the way WHO is financed is needed, says director-general | World Health Organization


The head of the World Health Organization has warned member countries that the UN’s global health body is being “set up to fail” without a “paradigm shift” in the way it is financed and supported.

In harsh language delivered to the WHO executive board, the organization’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed more than 5.5 million lives, had underscored the need to strengthen health systems and pandemic preparedness plans.

Addressing the specific topic of Covid-19, Tedros also warned that conditions remained ideal for more variants to emerge. He said it was dangerous for countries to assume that Omicron is the latest variant or that “we are at the end of the game.”

“There are different scenarios for how the pandemic could develop and how the acute phase could end,” he said.

“But it is dangerous to assume that Omicron will be the last variant or that we are at the end of the game,” he added. “On the contrary, globally, the conditions are ideal for more variants to emerge.”

He insisted, however, that “we can end Covid-19 as a global health emergency, and we can do it this year”, by reaching goals such as that of the WHO to vaccinate 70% of the population of each country by mid this year, with a focus on people who are most at risk from Covid-19.

“It is true that we will be living with Covid for the foreseeable future and that we will need to learn how to manage it through a sustained and integrated system for acute respiratory diseases” to help prepare for future pandemics, he said.

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“But learning to live with Covid cannot mean that we give this virus a free ride. It cannot mean that we accept nearly 50,000 deaths a week from a preventable and treatable disease.”

In extensive comments on Monday, Tedros told members: “Covid-19 has shown that health is not just a national issue; it is an international problem. The scale of the challenges we face is immense and is reflected in the breadth of your agenda this week.”

Supporters say the WHO’s reliance on voluntary funding from member states and charities forces it to focus on priorities set by funders and makes it less able to criticize members when things go wrong. A proposal by the WHO’s working group on sustainable financing calls for mandatory contributions from members to be gradually increased to represent half of the agency’s core budget of $2 billion by 2028, from less than 20% today.

“For too long, health has been compartmentalized and deprioritised, nationally and internationally. It is time to recognize that if we do not invest in health, we do not invest in the future,” said Tedros.

Addressing long-term concerns about the organization’s performance, Tedros said members were within their rights to expect higher standards from the organization, including “improved governance, efficiency, accountability and transparency.” , and said that included “zero tolerance for sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment.”

The reference to sexual abuse appears to be a reference to a damning report last year that found that 21 employees working for the UN world health body were among the perpetrators of serious sexual abuse during the Ebola crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Congo.

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The comments appeared to be aimed at concerns, some of them politically motivated and raised in particular by the former Trump administration. who withdrew from the WHO – around the WHO’s initial response to the coronavirus pandemic and the investigation into its origins.

Underlining the continuing scale of the pandemic, Tedros said: “This Sunday marks two years since I declared a public health emergency of international concern, the highest level of alarm under international law, for the spread of Covid-19.

“At the time, there were fewer than 100 cases and no deaths were reported outside of China. Two years later, almost 350 million cases and more than 5.5 million deaths were reported, and we know that these numbers are an underestimate.

Returning once again to the issue of vaccine equity, he added: “Currently, 86 member states in all regions have failed to meet last year’s target of vaccinating 40% of their populations, and 34 member states, most of them in Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean region, they have not been able to vaccinate even 10% of their populations.

“Eighty-five percent of Africa’s population has yet to receive a single dose of vaccine. How can this be acceptable to any of us? We simply cannot end the emergency phase of the pandemic unless we close this gap.”


www.theguardian.com

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