The World Health Organization (WHO) has come under renewed scrutiny in recent days over its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and its plans for addressing pandemics in the future.
This week, the World Health Assembly—the WHO’s decision-making body—began considering new ways to govern international responses to disease outbreaks. An early-stage draft before the Assembly includes both binding and non-binding language regarding how nations handle disease outbreaks internally, as well as how they coordinate with international partners. Article 15 of the draft document (pdf) specifically describes the WHO as the “directing and coordinating authority on international health work,” and says the WHO’s Director-General shall be the one to declare pandemics. The WHO’s draft document also calls for wealthier developed nations to reserve a percentage of the diagnostic tools and disease treatments they create to share with developing nations.
