Transparency Should be Incentivized for Outbreaks, says AHF

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--With the negotiations underway for a new global pandemics treaty, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) urges the U.S. government to ensure that the transparent and timely reporting of outbreaks and sharing of epidemiological data is incentivized for countries that embrace global public health cooperation through priority access to medicines, treatments, and other essential commodities.

“Countries must be incentivized to immediately share epidemiological data and information on potential outbreaks as soon as it becomes available – and world leaders can facilitate that by guaranteeing those countries get equal access to medicines, treatments, and other public health products in return for their transparency – which didn’t happen during the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Dr. Jorge Saavedra, Executive Director of the AHF Global Public Health Institute at the University of Miami. “The U.S. and other World Health Organization Member States have the chance with this new pandemic accord to set the world up for success in preventing and responding to future crises – we’re calling on them to put effective policies in place to ensure that happens.”

Representatives from the U.S. and other WHO Member States are gathered in Geneva this week for the third meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) to draft an instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response (PPPR). According to Health Policy Watch, while the United States agrees that a new pandemic accord should expedite rapid global data sharing for impending public health threats, it does not agree that sharing should be linked to equity in accessing medicines and therapeutics.

Nearly 30 members of civil society, academia, and other non-government organizations from 20 different countries, including AHF, recently signed and sent a letter to the WHO’s INB to urge Member States to ensure a new pandemic agreement included non-state actors in all aspects of PPPR, ensured equitable access to pandemic response products and funding, and guaranteed accountability and transparency. Read the letter’s full text here.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) is a global non-profit organization providing cutting-edge medicine and advocacy to over 1.6 million people in 45 countries worldwide in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Region and Europe. We are currently the largest non-profit provider of HIV/AIDS medical care in the world. To learn more about AHF, please visit our website: www.aidshealth.org, find us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/aidshealth and follow us on Twitter: @aidshealthcare and Instagram: @aidshealthcare