During the event, Mr Ghebreyesus urged leaders around the world to back the WHO Pandemic Preparedness Treaty – launched in 2021 to try and reach international consensus on how to deal with the next pandemic.
Mr Ghebreyesus said: “[The] key to being better prepared and to address Disease X is the pandemic agreement. It can bring all the experience, all the challenges we faced and all the solutions into one. This is about a common enemy. Without a shared response we will face the same problems we saw with Covid.”
He added: “If our generation cannot do it, with the firsthand experience, I don’t think the next generation will do it.
“We are still not prepared, but I think there are many moving parts and we have started good ones, all of us together, that can prepare us better.”
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The authors of the WHO Pandemic Preparedness Treaty said in a joint statement: “The main goal of this treaty would be to foster an all-of-government and all-of-society approach, strengthening national, regional and global capacities and resilience to future pandemics.
“This includes greatly enhancing international co-operation to improve, for example, alert systems, data-sharing, research and local, regional and global production and distribution of medical and public health counter-measures such as vaccines, medicines, diagnostics and personal protective equipment.”
The treaty will be subject to amendments from various leaders around the world. The deadline for the treaty is May 2024, however, differences of opinion between countries mean that the treaty may not pass at all.
Kate Bingham, who served as the chair of the UK’s Vaccine Taskforce, was asked by the Daily Mail how many people could die as a result of Disease X.
She replied: “Let me put it this way: the 1918-19 flu pandemic killed at least 50 million people worldwide, twice as many as were killed in World War I. Today, we could expect a similar death toll from one of the many viruses that already exist.”
