Mr. Gates’ emphasis on a multinational effort to prepare for a future of contamination cannot be contested. However, it must be noted that the type of international cooperation that Mr. Gates is promoting comes with its own challenges. For example, in 2021, Mr. Gates himself refused to share the intellectual property rights on the Covid-19 vaccines with developing nations, in what was widely viewed as a protectionism move.
According to a report in Forbes, such protectionism by nations where vaccines were being produced intensified the effects of Covid19 by allowing the virus to live longer and evolve in undeveloped and underdeveloped nations where vaccines were not available until much later.
Nonetheless, it is hopeful that 194 of the World Health Organization’s member states have consented to create the initial version of a binding agreement meant to safeguard the globe from pandemics in the future. Another international initiative, the Pandemic Fund of the World Bank, recently received approval for $300 million in funding to improve global disease surveillance, create early warning and laboratory systems, and strengthen human resources and public health workforce capacity, particularly in developing and underdeveloped countries.
Source: Statista
Employees in the animal and human health sectors currently share real-time information on disease outbreaks through the Global Early Warning and Response System, a formalised monitoring and reporting platform for outbreaks of illness established in 2006 by three United Nations organisations.
However, this won’t be of much value if outbreaks aren’t reported promptly; this was the first error made with regard to Covid-19. Also, for any international endeavour to succeed, nations must give up their nationalist and solitary agendas. So, the fight against future pandemics could also revitalise multilateralism, which has recently been on the decline as a result of disagreements among world leaders and the emergence of autarchic polities.
Source: Johns Hopkins Medicine
Relevantly, the Independent Commission on Multilateralism released a toolkit on the future path, which includes strengthening WHO to rein in errant nations, to ensure that while diseases are unavoidable, pandemics are not.
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