WHO: Why a pandemic agreement is important but still a long way off

The global outbreak of a new pathogen can lead to catastrophe. A pandemic agreement by the World Health Organization (WHO) should prepare us for an emergency. But there is no treaty yet – instead there is a multi-page hodgepodge.

There is no doubt that the corona pandemic will go down in human history as a global catastrophe: around seven million deaths have so far been laboratory-confirmed to be attributable to Sars-CoV-2, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The actual number of victims is likely to be many times higher and ranges – depending on the statistics of “excess mortality” in the pandemic years – somewhere between 16 and 39 million. In addition, there is financial damage, which the International Monetary Fund estimates at almost 13 trillion euros.