73rd World Health Assembly Resumes Proceedings Virtually 
May 18, 2020. World Health Assembly meeting. (WHO)
The World Health Assembly (WHA) this week resumed its
proceedings virtually from November 9 to 14. The resumed session
follows the reduced (de minimis) meeting of May 18
to
19.[1]
The WHA is the decision-making body of the World Health
Organization (WHO). The
WHA highlighted three main concerns to be addressed at the
proceedings: 1) COVID-19 can be beaten with
science, solutions and
solidarity, and calls for an evidence-based approach to the
pandemic and for all countries to work together to develop and
provide everyone with the necessary vaccines, diagnostics and
therapeutics. 2) Members of the WHO must
not
backslide on its critical health goals. The WHA indicated, "The resumed
session
will discuss a 10-year-plan for addressing neglected tropical
diseases, as well as efforts to address meningitis, epilepsy and
other neurological disorders, maternal infant and young child
nutrition, digital health, and the WHO Global Code of Practice on
the International Recruitment of Health Personnel, adopted in
2010." 3) The world must prepare for the next
pandemic now. It is
calling on "the global health community to ensure that all
countries are better equipped to detect and respond to cases of
COVID-19 and other dangerous infectious diseases." Overall,
the major concern of the WHO is to develop the
capacity, cooperation and solidarity of all countries to
collectively overcome the health problems facing humanity. Summing
Up the WHO's Work in 2020
In his opening remarks to the WHA on November 9, WHO
Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus summed up the state of
the pandemic and gave an overview of the WHO's approach in the past
year to overcoming COVID-19:
- providing the
world with up-to-date scientific
guidelines;
- conducting the Solidarity Trial, one of the
largest and most diverse clinical trials, to generate robust data
on therapeutics;
- the OpenWHO.org learning platform that has
provided free online training in 17 different topics, in 41
languages, with more than 4.5 million registered users;
- the
Access to COVID-19 Tools that aims to develop vaccines,
diagnostics and therapeutics fast, and to allocate them
fairly. Dr. Tedros noted the WHO's work to respond
to more than 60
emergencies, "including major outbreaks of Chikungunya in Chad,
yellow fever in Gabon and Togo, measles in Mexico, conflicts in
the Sahel, Middle East and Caucasus, storms in the Philippines
and Viet Nam, and much more." He noted, "After an 18-month
struggle, under the leadership of the government of the
Democratic Republic of the Congo and with multiple partners, we
ended the Ebola outbreak in the country's east -- one of the most
complex health emergencies WHO has ever faced, made even more
difficult by the world's largest measles outbreak." The WHO also
provided aid to those injured in the explosion in Beirut on
August 4. It has continued its vaccination program to eradicate
polio, despite the difficulties posed by COVID-19. He
stated that "there has been progress towards our
target to see 1 billion more people benefiting from universal
health coverage" and that "There has also been significant
progress in our work to support health system-strengthening
around the world." Transformation of WHO
Dr. Tedros also pointed out that the WHO is in the midst of a
process of transformation as directed by its membership. Its aim
is to "deliver a measurable impact" in member countries,
including by making the "WHO a modern, data-driven organization
that supports Member States with timely, reliable and actionable
data to drive impact." The second aspect of the
transformation is "new processes to
make us more effective and efficient." Thirdly, the
WHO is also implementing a "new aligned operating
model, which for the first time clearly differentiates the role
of headquarters, regional and country offices, and aligns our
structures at all three levels." Fourthly, the WHO
is taking a new approach to partnerships,
expanding them to include ones with sports federations and the
private sector, including social media monopolies. Fifthly,
is what Dr. Tedros referred to as "a new culture that
is focused on results" which he linked to the WHO's values
charter established two years ago "which outlines five values
that make us who we are: service, excellence, integrity,
collaboration, and compassion." The sixth aspect of
this transformation is to ensure
predictable and sustainable funding for the WHO. He said, "For WHO to
do its job, we must address the shocking and
expanding imbalance between assessed contributions and voluntary,
largely earmarked funds. In the past decade, the world's
expectations of WHO have grown dramatically, but our budget has
barely changed. And those expectations will only continue to
increase in the wake of the pandemic. Our annual budget is
equivalent to what the world spends on tobacco products every
single day." The seventh and final aspect of the
transformation is
"building a motivated, diverse and fit-for-purpose workforce,"
and Dr. Tedros noted, "We achieved gender parity in
senior leadership for the first time in WHO, and we're making
progress in other areas." Dr. Tedros also mentioned
a proposal made last year "by the
Central African Republic and Benin as the then-Chair of the
African Union [...] in which countries agree to a regular and
transparent process of peer review, similar to the system of
universal periodic review used by the Human Rights Council. We're
calling it the Universal Health and Preparedness Review. Its
purpose is to build mutual trust and accountability for health,
by bringing nations together as neighbours to support a
whole-of-government approach to strengthening national capacities
for pandemic preparedness, universal health coverage and
healthier populations. We are now in the process of developing a
more detailed proposal, which we will share with Member States
very shortly." Resolution on Emergency
Preparedness
On November 10, the WHA approved a resolution on emergency
preparedness. The resolution asks countries to reinvigorate their
systems of emergency preparedness, vulnerability assessment,
alert, response, and compliance, in line with the 2005
International Health Regulations (IHR), which are a binding legal
framework. The new resolution also asks the WHO to
come up with proposals by
next year's WHA for "possible complementary mechanisms to be used
by the Director-General to alert the global community about the
severity and/or magnitude of a public health emergency, in order
to mobilize necessary support and facilitate international
coordination." The website Geneva Solutions reports
that "member states are
considering adding an 'amber alert' to the current IHR system by
which WHO could signal that a public health emergency is
developing -- even before it becomes a full blown 'red light'
signaling a 'public health emergency of international
concern.'" Resolutions on Meningitis Control and
Epilepsy,
Roadmap on
Neglected Tropical Diseases Committee A, which
focuses on program and budget matters,
recommended the adoption of the first-ever resolution on
meningitis, which would approve a global roadmap to defeat
meningitis by 2030 -- a disease that kills 300,000 people
annually and leaves one in five of those affected with
devastating long-term consequences. Committee A
also recommended the adoption of a resolution
calling for scaled-up and integrated action on epilepsy and other
neurological disorders such as stroke, migraine and dementia.
Neurological disorders are the leading cause of disability and
the second leading cause of death worldwide. Committee
A further recommended the endorsement of the new roadmap for neglected
tropical
diseases (NTDs). The roadmap aims to achieve the following targets by
2030: reduce by 90 per cent the number of people requiring
treatment for NTDs, eliminate at least one NTD in 100 countries,
eradicate two diseases (dracunculiasis and yaws), and reduce by
75 per cent the disability-adjusted life years related to
NTDs. Committee B, which deals predominantly with
administrative,
financial and legal matters, reviewed the Director-General's
report on "Health conditions in the occupied Palestinian
territory, including east Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian
Golan." Committee B also voted to recommend the
adoption of a decision requesting that the Director-General, amongst
others, report on progress in the implementation of its
recommendations to the next World Health Assembly. Along
with the resolution on scaled-up action on epilepsy and other
neurological disorders, resolutions
on eye care and food safety were also adopted. The WHA also adopted a
Global
Strategy to Accelerate the Elimination of Cervical Cancer as a
public health problem, a Global Strategy for Tuberculosis
Research and Innovation; and a Global Strategy and Plan of Action on
Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property. The
WHA declared 2021-2030 the Decade of Healthy Aging,
as well as declaring 2021 as the International Year of Health and
Care Workers. Note 1. For
coverage
of the first part of the 73rd WHA, see "73rd Session
of World
Health Assembly Held Virtually," TML Weekly Supplement,
May 23, 2020.
This article was published in
Volume 50 Number 44 - November 14, 2020
Article Link:
73rd World Health Assembly Resumes Proceedings Virtually
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
|
