On May 19 and May 20, Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos met with counterparts from G7 nations in Berlin, Germany, to discuss how to “advance a global network approach to enhance pandemic surveillance and response capabilities and capacities.”
The G7 is an informal inter-governmental forum that consists of the seven largest economies in the world, namely Germany, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union.
“We want to nurture an enhanced network for pandemic readiness with regional and national nodes on all continents,” said the G7 pact, released on May 20.
Noting that the world is still “insufficiently” prepared for future pandemics, the health ministers reasoned that enhancing readiness is necessary to elicit a faster response to outbreaks.
The pact promised to strengthen “integrated, interoperable and interdisciplinary, cross-sector surveillance capabilities and capacities” between member countries as part of its collaborative surveillance effort.
Having “swiftly available” measures is also part of the plan, including vaccines along with non-pharmacological interventions that responders, such as governments, can have access to.
To achieve their goal, the ministers pledged to provide technical, political, or financial support to international organizations including the World Health Organization (WHO).
In addition, the ministers advocated for the WHO to have the authority to “proactively and immediately” make critical epidemiological signals public.
The same amendment provides that the “WHO may take into account reports from sources other than notifications [from] or consultations [with]” the nation where the problem is allegedly occurring.
A proposed amendment to Article 10 requires that, in the event the nation with the suspected problem doesn’t cooperate within 48 hours, the WHO shall, “when justified by the magnitude of the public health risk, immediately share with other [nations] the information available to it.”
The G7 pact said member countries will foster standardization of common protocols to ensure a predictable rapid response, while at the same time strengthening WHO’s response capacities nationally, regionally, and globally.
“We therefore support strengthening the IHR through targeted amendments in an inclusive process as recommended by the report of the Working Group on Strengthening WHO Preparedness and Response to Health Emergencies (WGPR) to be considered at the 75th WHA.”
“The health, economic and social costs of not being adequately prepared are catastrophic. That’s why Canada supports the idea of a new multilateral instrument to ensure better preparedness,” he said.
“This is also precisely why institutions like the WHO are so important. The WHO has played a key role in international health cooperation since its creation and, even more so, since the beginning of this pandemic,” he added.
WHO, COVID-19, and Canada
In the early days of the pandemic, the WHO actively advised against countries restricting travellers from China.Tam said in a House of Commons hearing on Feb. 5, 2020, that the WHO advises against travel restrictions on China, adding that, “China posted the virus genome very quickly. What are they getting out of it? I think the idea is to support China.”
A report published last June by the UK government stated that China has been using both aggressive and subtle means to gain control in multilateral organizations, such as the WHO, and using them to shift policies.
Meanwhile, the WHO has begun negotiations on a new international treaty on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response.