Our co-chairs, Former President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović and former Minister Joy Phumaphi,
Distinguished members of the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board,
Dear colleagues and friends,
COVID-19 was a powerful demonstration of the devastating potential of pandemics.
Current outbreaks of mpox, Marburg, MERS and H5N1 remind us that the next pandemic is not a question of if, but when.
In the world of health emergencies, there is no such thing as "peacetime".
Preparedness must be a constant state.
That’s why WHO and the World Bank founded the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board, in 2018.
The COVID-19 pandemic taught us many painful lessons, which we have used to establish several new initiatives:
To strengthen surveillance, the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence, here in Berlin;
To strengthen financing, the Pandemic Fund with the World Bank;
To strengthen local production, the mRNA Technology Transfer Programme;
To strengthen equitable access to countermeasures, the interim Medical Countermeasures Network, iMCM-net;
To strengthen sharing of biological samples, the WHO BioHub System;
And to strengthen governance, Member States approved amendments to the International Health Regulations.
The biggest remaining piece of the puzzle, as you know, is the WHO Pandemic Agreement.
Although Member States have made progress, some of the most crucial issues have not yet been resolved, but I am confident they will be.
I welcome the GPMB’s new report, with its call to adapt, protect and connect.
The report highlights many of the key components that the Pandemic Agreement is designed to address:
A One Health approach;
Equitable access to medical countermeasures;
Research and development;
And most importantly, and most relevant for this World Health Summit, trust.
The global response to the COVID-19 pandemic was undermined by the lack of a coherent and coordinated approach, based on equity and solidarity.
We can only face shared threats with a shared response.
My thanks once again to our co-chairs Kolinda and Joy, and to all members of the GPMB, for dedicating your time and expertise to this very timely and important analysis.
I urge all countries and partners to read it, and to act on it, to adapt, protect and connect.
I thank you.