Countries meeting at the World Health Organization this week are thrashing out how to prepare for future pandemics – amid warnings that the planet is wide open to the next crisis.

WHO emergencies director Dr Mike Ryan said that infectious diseases were being amplified by weak public health services and poorly-managed urban settings.

Citing the monkeypox outbreaks in non-endemic locations, he told countries that the spread of the virus was “directly related to our inability, or unwillingness, to manage those risks earlier in their cycle of epidemic generation”.

World ‘remains unprepared’

WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned countries that there was no time to lose.

“Building health emergency preparedness, response and resilience is an urgent priority because the pandemic has shown that the world was, and remains unprepared,” he told the assembly.

Amendments are being considered to the International Health Regulations – a set of legally-binding international laws governing how countries respond to acute public health risks.

And negotiations are underway towards a new “legal instrument” – possibly a treaty – aimed at streamlining the global approach to pandemic preparedness and response.

A progress report on the new instrument will be submitted at the 2023 World Health Assembly, with the final outcome presented for consideration at the 2024 World Health Assembly.

“A legally-binding instrument is a promise to future generations to ensure the world can respond to the next pandemic or health emergency,” Dr Tedros said.

The IHR, adopted in 2005, set out countries’ rights and obligations in handling health emergencies that could spread abroad.

They also define what constitutes a so-called public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC) – the highest alarm the WHO can sound.