TUESDAY, May 24, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Following two years of tough negotiations, efforts to craft a global treaty to help countries fight future pandemics have failed, the World Health Organization has acknowledged. "WHO Member States have ended intensive negotiations aimed at strengthening global capacities to respond to future pandemics and outbreaks in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and agreed to submit outcomes of their work for consideration by the upcoming World Health Assembly, starting Monday," the WHO said in a statement released Friday. “Over the past two years, WHO Member States have dedicated enormous effort to rise to this challenge posted by COVID-19 and respond to the losses it caused, including at least 7 million lives lost,” WHO Director General Dr.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in the statement. “While great progress was made during these negotiations, there are challenges still to overcome. We need to use the World Health Assembly to re-energize us and finish the job at hand, which is to present the world with a generational pandemic agreement.
” Back in 2021, member countries asked the WHO to oversee negotiations to figure out how the world might better share resources and stop future viruses from spreading rapidly around the globe. On Friday, Roland Driece , co-chair of WHO’s negotiating board for the agreement, said the World Health Assembly meeting this week will have to chart the way forward. “We will try everything -- believing th.
