And for two years, World Health Organisation (WHO)member states have been negotiating an international agreement scheduled for adoption at the World Health Assembly this month. While the public mood is to quietly forget about the Covid-19 pandemic, science suggests this would be a bad move. Additional urgency for a pandemic agreement comes from the continued emergence of avian flu, aka the H5N1 virus. The H5N1 variant has become “a global zoonotic animal pandemic”, according to the WHO’s Chief Scientist, Dr Jeremy Farrar. Without trust, countries won’t report outbreaks promptly, and they won’t freely exchange epidemiologic information, virus samples, and sequencing data.

Source: Irish Independent June 24, 2024 09:08 UTC