(WHO ME­DIA) - Our world is an un­equal one.

COVID-19 has hit all coun­tries hard, but its im­pact has been harsh­est on those com­mu­ni­ties which were al­ready vul­ner­a­ble and more like­ly to ex­pe­ri­ence ad­verse con­se­quences.

COVID-19 ex­posed many dis­par­i­ties.

All over the world, per­sons strug­gle to make ends meet with few­er em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties, have chal­leng­ing hous­ing con­di­tions and ed­u­ca­tion, ex­pe­ri­ence greater gen­der in­equal­i­ty, and have lit­tle or no ac­cess to ba­sic ne­ces­si­ties: clean wa­ter, food se­cu­ri­ty and health ser­vices. This leads to un­nec­es­sary suf­fer­ing, avoid­able ill­ness, and pre­ma­ture death. It harms our so­ci­eties and economies.

This is not on­ly un­fair: it is pre­ventable.

That is why the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion called on all lead­ers to mon­i­tor these health in­equities and to en­sure that all per­sons can ac­cess qual­i­ty health ser­vices when and where they need them.

This April 7th marks the cel­e­bra­tion of World Health Day.

From its in­cep­tion at the First Health As­sem­bly in 1948 and since tak­ing ef­fect in 1950, the cel­e­bra­tion has aimed to cre­ate aware­ness of a spe­cif­ic health theme to high­light a pri­or­i­ty area of con­cern for the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion. This year that theme is “Build­ing a fair­er, health­i­er world”.

One week ago, on March 30th, 25 heads of gov­ern­ment and in­ter­na­tion­al agen­cies came to­geth­er on an ex­tra­or­di­nary joint call to ob­serve this theme of World Health Day and signed an In­ter­na­tion­al Pan­dem­ic Treaty. It is hoped that this new treaty would her­ald high-lev­el eco­nom­ic and sus­tain­able ac­tions need­ed to pro­tect the world from fu­ture health crises.

The TREATY states:

“The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic is the biggest chal­lenge to the glob­al com­mu­ni­ty since the 1940s. At that time, fol­low­ing the dev­as­ta­tion of two world wars, po­lit­i­cal lead­ers came to­geth­er to forge the mul­ti­lat­er­al sys­tem. The aims were clear: to bring coun­tries to­geth­er, to dis­pel the temp­ta­tions of iso­la­tion­ism and na­tion­al­ism, and to ad­dress the chal­lenges that could on­ly be achieved to­geth­er in the spir­it of sol­i­dar­i­ty and co­op­er­a­tion, name­ly peace, pros­per­i­ty, health and se­cu­ri­ty.”

“To­day, we hold the same hope that as we fight to over­come the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic to­geth­er, we can build a more ro­bust in­ter­na­tion­al health ar­chi­tec­ture that will pro­tect fu­ture gen­er­a­tions. There will be oth­er pan­demics and oth­er ma­jor health emer­gen­cies. No sin­gle gov­ern­ment or mul­ti­lat­er­al agency can ad­dress this threat alone. The ques­tion is not if, but when. To­geth­er, we must be bet­ter pre­pared to pre­dict, pre­vent, de­tect, as­sess and ef­fec­tive­ly re­spond to pan­demics in a high­ly co­or­di­nat­ed fash­ion. The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has been a stark and painful re­minder that no­body is safe un­til every­one is safe.”

“We are, there­fore, com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing uni­ver­sal and eq­ui­table ac­cess to safe, ef­fi­ca­cious and af­ford­able vac­cines, med­i­cines and di­ag­nos­tics for this and fu­ture pan­demics. Im­mu­niza­tion is a glob­al pub­lic good and we will need to be able to de­vel­op, man­u­fac­ture and de­ploy vac­cines as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.”

“This is why the Ac­cess to COVID-19 Tools Ac­cel­er­a­tor (ACT-A) was set up in or­der to pro­mote equal ac­cess to tests, treat­ments and vac­cines and sup­port health sys­tems across the globe. ACT-A has de­liv­ered on many as­pects but eq­ui­table ac­cess is not achieved yet. There is more we can do to pro­mote glob­al ac­cess.”

“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. It would al­so in­clude recog­ni­tion of a “One Health” ap­proach that con­nects the health of hu­mans, an­i­mals and our plan­et. And such a treaty should lead to more mu­tu­al ac­count­abil­i­ty and shared re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy and co­op­er­a­tion with­in the in­ter­na­tion­al sys­tem and with its rules and norms.”

“To achieve this, we will work with Heads of State and gov­ern­ments glob­al­ly and all stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing civ­il so­ci­ety and the pri­vate sec­tor. We are con­vinced that it is our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, as lead­ers of na­tions and in­ter­na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions, to en­sure that the world learns the lessons of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.”

“Pan­dem­ic pre­pared­ness needs glob­al lead­er­ship for a glob­al health sys­tem fit for this mil­len­ni­um. To make this com­mit­ment a re­al­i­ty, we must be guid­ed by sol­i­dar­i­ty, fair­ness, trans­paren­cy, in­clu­sive­ness and eq­ui­ty.”

Signed By:

Dr Tedros Ad­hanom Ghe­breye­sus, Di­rec­tor-Gen­er­al of the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion;

Boris John­son, Prime Min­is­ter of the Unit­ed King­dom;

Charles Michel, Pres­i­dent of the Eu­ro­pean Coun­cil;

Moon Jae-in, Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of Ko­rea;

Cyril Ramaphosa, Pres­i­dent of South Africa;

Paul Kagame, Pres­i­dent of Rwan­da;

Uhu­ru Keny­at­ta, Pres­i­dent of Kenya;

Kais Saied, Pres­i­dent of Tunisia;

Macky Sall, Pres­i­dent of Sene­gal;

Kei­th Row­ley, Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go;

Se­bastián Piñera, Pres­i­dent of Chile;

Car­los Al­vara­do Que­sa­da, Pres­i­dent of Cos­ta Ri­ca;

J.V. Bain­i­mara­ma, Prime Min­is­ter of Fi­ji;

Prayut Chan-o-cha, Prime Min­is­ter of Thai­land;

Mark Rutte, Prime Min­is­ter of the Nether­lands;

An­tónio Luís San­tos da Cos­ta, Prime Min­is­ter of Por­tu­gal;

Mario Draghi, Prime Min­is­ter of Italy;

Pe­dro Sánchez, Prime Min­is­ter of Spain;

Er­na Sol­berg, Prime Min­is­ter of Nor­way;

Em­manuel Macron, Pres­i­dent of France;

An­gela Merkel, Chan­cel­lor of Ger­many;

Kyr­i­akos Mit­so­takis, Prime Min­is­ter of Greece;

Klaus Io­han­nis, Pres­i­dent of Ro­ma­nia;

An­drej Plenković, Prime Min­is­ter of Croa­t­ia;

Alek­san­dar Vučić, Pres­i­dent of Ser­bia;

Edi Ra­ma, Prime Min­is­ter of Al­ba­nia;

Joko Wido­do, Pres­i­dent of In­done­sia;

Volodymyr Ze­len­sky, Pres­i­dent of Ukraine.