UN Calls For Global Cooperation And Pandemic Treaty To Fight AMR

May 18, 2024

Deputy Secretary-General of the UN Amina Mohammed stressed at a hearing with many stakeholders how important it is to finish the international pandemic treaty as soon as possible. Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR), a growing threat to health worldwide, is a big reason why this is so important. The talk is an introduction to the high-level meeting on AMR that will happen later this year at the same time as the General Assembly. The 77th World Health Assembly(WHA) will make progress on the treaty’s near future on May 27, 2024, even though the UK government is partially against it.

Understanding the Treaty Amidst Misinformation

While the pandemic treaty is still being argued over, some UK politicians and public figures have said they are worried that it would weaken national authority by giving the World Health Organization (WHO) too much power. The World Health Organization (WHO) has denied these claims and made it clear that the treaty does not aim to lock down countries or control their vaccine supplies. Instead, it focuses on making sure that the whole world works together to deal with new germs that threaten public health.

Role of the Treaty in Combating AMR

The deal brings together efforts from all over the world to fight AMR, which is a major threat to recent progress in healthcare. Because of AMR, infections are becoming less sensitive to medicines, which makes them harder to treat. Amina Mohammed talked about the scary numbers that come with AMR, like the high death rates that are expected to get a lot worse by 2050. This is not only a health problem; it also makes economic and food security problems worse around the world.

More About AMR (Antimicrobial Resistance)

Microbes develop ways to fight drugs that are meant to kill them. This is called antimicrobial resistance (AMR). It kills about 700,000 people a year, and that number could rise to 10 million by 2050, more than cancer deaths. Overuse in medicine and farming is one of the main causes of AMR. Many of the medicines we use come from bacteria in the soil. Alexander Fleming was the first person to use this to his advantage in 1928 with penicillin. Sadly, the first case of penicillin resistance was found before it was widely used in medicine. The U.S. healthcare system loses about $20 billion a year because of AMR. Worst of all, less than 5% of the money spent on study into infectious diseases around the world goes to AMR.

More About World Health Assembly

The World Health Organization (WHO) makes decisions through the World Health Assembly (WHA).
It meets once a year in Geneva, Switzerland.
The WHO began in 1948 and now has 194 member states with delegates.
The WHA sets major health policies, chooses the Director-General, oversees financial policies, and approves the budget.
It also looks at reports from different health-related services.
One important past decision was the declaration of the eradication of smallpox in 1980.
In 1969, the International Health Regulations (IHR) were made, which were updated in 2005 to handle public health emergencies. This was another important decision.

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