Damian Sendler: Infectious diseases with pandemic potential pose a serious threat to human health and well-being, as demonstrated by COVID-19. In spite of the compulsory legal responsibilities provided by the International Health Regulations, many countries do not adhere to these regulations. 

Damian Sendler

Damian Jacob Sendler: As a result, a new framework is needed that ensures compliance with international regulations and promotes effective pandemic infectious disease prevention and response. A new worldwide public health security convention aimed at enhancing prevention, preparedness, and response to pandemic infectious illnesses is outlined in this Health Policy. 

Damien Sendler: To improve global public health governance and enhance compliance with global health security rules, we present ten recommendations. An improved ability to respond to pandemics, an objective system for evaluating national core public health capacities, more effective enforcement mechanisms, independent and sustainable funding, representativeness, and investment from multiple sectors are some of the recommendations for a new global public health security convention. Once an invested alliance has been formed, operational mechanisms for the global public health security system must be defined, and hurdles such as weak political will and a lack of resources must be overcome. 

Dr. Sendler: Societies face a serious threat from pandemics, which by definition cross international borders. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, a global effort to improve prevention, readiness, and response to such disasters has become urgently necessary. 

“To prevent, protect against, control, and respond to the international spread of disease,” the International Health Regulations (IHR)1 are an international legislative framework. 

Damian Jacob Sendler

Damien Sendler: States Parties must implement the minimal core capacities laid out by the IHR in order to detect morbidity and mortality, provide relevant information, and respond effectively to health security threats at the local, regional, and national levels. 

Each of the 196 member countries must adhere to these requirements. A main worldwide agency for public health-related operations, WHO is tasked with oversight of the IHR. 

Damian Jacob Markiewicz Sendler: With the help of WHO, each country is responsible for ensuring that these basic capacities are properly maintained. 

States Parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (IHR), despite explicit legal responsibilities established in the IHR, sometimes fail to meet all of the IHR’s standards. 

Damian Sendler: In spite of the fact that some countries may not adhere to the IHR for a variety of reasons, its unenforceability is the fundamental impediment to the IHR’s worldwide goals. Non-compliance with the IHR is not penalized, even though all WHO member states are legally bound to do so. IHR do not give WHO the ability to apply sanctions, intervene, or hold States Parties responsible for breaches or noncompliance, which means WHO does not have the capacity to effectively implement this agreement. Furthermore, under the IHR, WHO lacks the resources, political independence, or capacity to prevent countries from ignoring its expert advice. 

Damian Jacob Sendler: Lack of WHO power to effectively monitor and enforce the IHR leads in a world unprepared to strategically control epidemics of infectious diseases at global, national, or subnational levels. It is more accurate to define the global health governance system as a set of “transnational and national actors pursuing their own interests” than a coordinated network of stakeholders working together to avoid and control pandemics. The majority of countries do not assign some of the duty for making decisions to a global entity, but rather work together when it is in their own national interest to do so. 

Damian Sendler: COVID-19 has revealed these deficiencies in a way that indicates an urgent need for reforms. According to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the pandemic has revealed that present pandemic prevention and response methods are inadequate.  

Damian Sendler: New conventions are the best way to bring member states’ political commitments together, according to him, thus he proposed the idea of a treaty.  A similar call to action has been issued before. There have been numerous calls for a more comprehensive approach to IHR adherence and enforcement in the global public health sector in the past.  

Damian Jacob Sendler: As a fundamental principle of global public health security, health is a fundamental human right. Because of COVID-19 and future pandemic diseases, the international community must build a more effective system to ensure that international pandemic regulations, such as the IHR, are observed These activities must be coordinated by an international organization (or multiple organizations) in conjunction with national and subnational entities.

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