On February 19, Ambassador Pamela Hamamoto, U.S. Chief Negotiator for the Pandemic Accord, will lead an interagency U.S. delegation to the World Health Organization Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) in Geneva, Switzerland for the eighth round of negotiations on an international instrument to strengthen global pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response. The delegation includes representatives from the Department of State, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Treasury, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
Following the COVID-19 pandemic, it is critical to work together to find solutions to improve global pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response. Infectious diseases do not respect national borders, and the best way to prevent the next pandemic is to improve both domestic and global capabilities. U.S. leadership in these negotiations will help ensure that we reduce the risk of outbreaks — the vast majority of which arise outside the United States — affecting American lives and livelihoods. The United States is the world’s leading global health and pandemic preparedness funder. Since 2021, the United States has committed nearly $48 billion to global health efforts, including nearly $16 billion globally to end the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, by supporting critical response interventions and providing hundreds of millions of vaccine doses to more than 100 countries, alongside therapeutics, oxygen, and other medical supplies. U.S. goals for these negotiations are:
- Enhancing countries’ capacity to prevent, prepare for, detect, and respond to pandemic emergencies and provide clear, credible, consistent information to their citizens
- Ensuring all countries share data and laboratory samples from emerging outbreaks quickly and transparently to facilitate response efforts, including the rapid creation of safe and effective vaccines, tests, and treatments, and
- Supporting more equitable access to, and delivery of, vaccines, tests, treatments, and other mitigation measures to quickly contain outbreaks, reduce illness and death, and minimize impacts on the economic and national security of people around the world.
Collectively, these actions will make the United States, and the world, safer. The United States is committed to working with all WHO Member States to develop a new international instrument that meets these goals and will advance global health security for all people.
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