Expert Panel: Current Global Alert System “Clearly Unfit” to Prevent Another Pandemic

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to devastate communities across the world, the Independent Panel is making a series of immediate recommendations to halt its spread. It recommends that: 

·  High income countries with a vaccine pipeline for adequate coverage should, alongside their scale up, commit to provide to the 92 low and middle-income countries in the COVAX Gavi Advance Market Commitment with at least one billion vaccine doses by September 2021.

·  Major vaccine-producing countries and manufacturers should convene, under the joint auspices of the WHO and the World Trade Organization (WTO) to agree to voluntary licensing and technology transfer. If actions on this don’t occur within three months, a waiver of intellectual property rights under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights should come into force immediately.

·  The G7 should immediately commit to provide 60% of the US$19 billion required for the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A) in 2021 for vaccines, diagnostics, therapeutics, and strengthening of health systems, and a burden-sharing formula should be adopted to fund such global public goods on an ongoing basis.

Every country should apply proven public health measures at the scale required to curb the pandemic. Leadership from heads of state and government to achieve this is crucial.

The world must also urgently prepare to prevent a future outbreak from becoming a pandemic. To this end, the Independent Panel calls for the engagement of heads of state and government to lead on efforts to transform the existing system. The Panel calls for a series of bold and forward-looking reforms, including:  

·  Establishing a Global Health Threats Council that will maintain political commitment to pandemic preparedness and response and hold actors accountable, including through peer recognition and scrutiny. Countries should also adopt a Pandemic Framework Convention within the next six months.

·  Establish a new global system for surveillance based on full transparency. This system would provide the WHO with the authority to publish information about outbreaks with pandemic potential on an immediate basis without needing to seek approval and to dispatch experts to investigate at the shortest possible notice.  

·  Invest in national preparedness now as it will be too late when the next crisis hits. All governments should review their preparedness plans and allocate the necessary funds and people required to be prepared for another health crisis.  

·  Transform the current ACT-A into a truly global platform aimed at delivering global public goods including vaccines, diagnostics, therapeutics, and supplies that can be distributed swiftly and equitably worldwide—shifting from a market model to one aimed at delivering global public goods.

·  Focus and strengthen the authority and financing of the WHO, including by developing a new funding model to end earmarked funds and to increase Member State fees.  

·  Create an International Pandemic Financing Facility, which would have the capacity to mobilize long term (10-15 year) contributions of approximately US$5-10B per year to finance ongoing readiness. It would also be ready to disburse from US$50-100B at short notice by front-loading future commitments in the event of a pandemic declaration. The Global Health Threats Council would allocate and monitor the funding to institutions which have the capacity to support the development of preparedness and response capacities.

·  Heads of state and government should at a global summit adopt a political declaration under the auspices of the UN General Assembly to commit to these transformative reforms.

The Panel’s report also shared recommendations for individual countries, including that heads of state and government should appoint national pandemic coordinators who are accountable to them, and who have a mandate to drive whole-of-government coordination for pandemic preparedness and response. 

In the presentation of the report and its findings, Sirleaf stressed the need for bold reform: “Our message is simple and clear: the current system failed to protect us from the COVID-19 pandemic. And if we do not act to change it now, it will not protect us from the next pandemic threat, which could happen at any time.

“The shelves of storage rooms in the UN and national capitals are full of reports and reviews of previous health crises. Had their warnings been heeded, we would have avoided the catastrophe we are in today. This time must be different.”

Clark, said: “Given the scale of devastation from this pandemic and its continuing impact on people across the globe, the Panel resolved to document fully what happened and why, and to make bold recommendations for change.

“The tools are available to put an end to the severe illnesses, deaths, and socio-economic damage caused by COVID-19. Leaders have no choice but to act and stop this happening again.”  

The Panel is releasing the report and recommendations together, with a range of background papers which include the authoritative chronology of what happened. This is the culmination of multiple literature reviews, original research, discussions with experts in roundtables and in-depth interviews, and dialogue with those working on the front-line, with women and youth in town hall-style meetings. It also received online contributions to its work.

The Panel also notes the economic cost of the pandemic: The world lost $7 trillion in GDP in 2020 – more than the 2019 GDP of the entire African continent (which is $6.7 trillion). The report says that the pandemic has caused the deepest shock to the global economy since the Second World War.