13th Meeting of the Group of Friends of Global Health
“Learning from the pandemic and looking towards the future: strengthening WHO and the global health security architecture”

Monday, 1 March 2021 – 15h to 16h30, Geneva time

Intervention by Professor Lothar Wieler, Chair of the Review Committee on the functioning of the IHR during the COVID-19 response

Honorable Chair, Excellencies, Director-General, Ladies and Gentlemen

Thank you once again for the opportunity to provide you with an update on the work of the Review Committee on the Functioning of the International Health Regulations (2005) during COVID-19.

As you know, this Committee was convened by the Director-General on 8 September 2020, in line with World Health Assembly Resolution WHA73.1. The Committee is composed of experts with a wide range of expertise and with adequate gender and geographical representation. I have the honour to be the Chair of this Committee and am ably supported by our Vice-Chair, Professor Lucille Blumberg of South Africa and our Rapporteur, Professor Preben Aavitsland, from Norway.

Our mandate is to review the functioning of the International Health Regulations (2005) during the COVID-19 response and the status of implementation of the relevant recommendations of previous IHR Review Committees and to make technical recommendations to the Director-General, including any potential amendments.

We convened for 21 closed meetings so far, and we continue to work through three sub-groups: preparedness, alert, and response. I take this opportunity to reiterate my thanks to our three subgroup leads. We also convened 5 open meetings, when we provided updates on our work and listened to the submissions and questions raised by Member States, international agencies and non-governmental organizations in official relation to WHO. These open meetings continue to be attended by numerous designated representatives.

I reported on our progress to the 148th session of the Executive Board in January 2021 and you have seen that interim progress report, document EB148/19. And I continue to interact regularly with the Co-Chairs of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response and the Chair of the Independent Oversight Advisory Committee.

Tomorrow we will have our 6^th open meeting, and those of you who have designated representatives to the open meetings of the Review Committee may have received already our preliminary recommendations in the areas of legislation preparedness, National IHR Focal Points, notification and alert system, and core capacities. I will not go in details about these recommendations so that not to preempt the discussions tomorrow. Just to say that in terms of preparedness, levels overall are medium to low. While even for well-prepared countries the magnitude and the challenges of COVID-19 have been overwhelming, the gaps in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic are evidently exacerbated by the lack of compliance with IHR requirements and obligations. What is needed is political support and sustainable funding – sub-nationally, nationally and internationally – to support preparedness, a focus on an all-of-government approach, and regular independent review. In terms of notification and alert, the existing system is well trusted but relatively slow. States Parties should communicate more proactively through the EIS (event information system) with other States and the Secretariat simultaneously.

But let me reiterate our understanding from the interim progress report: Member States and experts overwhelmingly support the IHR as a cornerstone of international public health and health security law, and there is a strong belief in the Committee that most of the necessary improvements can be achieved through more effective implementation of the existing provisions of the IHR, and do not require at this point changes to the design of the IHR.

We have now established another subgroup in the Review Committee, the Governance subgroup, which is looking at aspects not yet addressed by the other subgroups, in terms of the issuance of and compliance with the Temporary Recommendations following the determination of the public health emergency of international concern, financing of the IHR functions within WHO Secretariat, the peer review mechanism for ensuring broader compliance and accountability, and scope and human rights aspects of the IHR. The Committee is examining also the extent to which elements of broader pandemic response not currently covered by the IHR could be included in a global treaty on pandemic preparedness and response.

I would like to clearly state my conviction that we need more meaningful cooperation during and in-between health emergencies; more transparency, more regular detailed exchange of real-time data and experiences at all levels, more reliability of interaction, and greater speed in sharing data and samples. Fortunately, digital technology supporting such developments is increasingly becoming available, from data mining to find disease outbreaks early, to next generation sequencing to follow a pathogen around the globe, to virtual conferencing that makes human interaction easier.

To come to the conclusion, the deadline for our final report is the 74th World Health Assembly in May 2021. However, as we all know, the COVID-19 pandemic will be far from over in 4 months’ time, and therefore our findings and recommendations will not necessarily be complete. Further deliberations may be needed later.

Let me reiterate what I said in November 2020 on the occasion of the 73rd Health Assembly: The IHR are your instrument, our instrument, of international public health law. Making them work requires giving WHO the tools and the resources it needs to better prepare and protect humanity against public health risks, through an effective, coordinated, multisectoral and evidence-based public health response.

Thank you again for the opportunity to speak to you today and let me also thank the Director-General for the excellent support provided by the WHO Secretariat to this Review Committee.

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