Countries must work in a highly co-ordinated fashion to be ready for new health crises, Boris Johnson and others say. [Source: BBC]
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has joined more than 20 world leaders in calling for a new global settlement to help the world prepare for future pandemics.
In an article around the world, leaders including President Macron of France and German chancellor Angela Merkel say COVID has posed the biggest challenge since World War Two.
Another pandemic or health crisis is a matter of “not if, but when”, they say.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, the 24 leaders argue that a treaty similar to that reached in the wake of World War Two is needed to build cross-border cooperation.
The signatories, who include the head of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, says that at that time, following the devastation of two world wars, political leaders came together to forge the multilateral system.
The leaders say that in the same spirit, countries must now be better prepared to predict, prevent, detect, assess and effectively respond to pandemics in a highly co-ordinated fashion.
