WHO chief promotes Bill Gates’ book on ‘next pandemic’ — Analysis

World Health Organization director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus praised the latest book by billionaire and self-styled pandemic ‘expert’ Bill Gates on Friday, declaring himself in full agreement with the software tycoon’s insistence that “we must act on Covid-19’s lessons and innovate so that we can deliver swift, equitable health solutions to prevent the next pandemic.”

The public health official tweeted a photo of himself with the tome, tagging the Gates Foundation, the Microsoft founder’s public health policy-making vehicle and one of the primary financial benefactors of the WHO.

Although Gates may not be a medical specialist – he dropped out of college to start Microsoft along with a friend from childhood – Gates’s wealth allows him to dominate the world health policy. He is the second largest contributor of private money to global health, after the US government.

The deep-pocketed vaccine evangelist took the stage for a TED Talk in Vancouver on Tuesday to elaborate on the ideas presented in the book, titled “How to prevent the next pandemic,” which calls for a $1 billion global emergency response team operating under the clever acronym GERM – Global Epidemic Response and Mobilization. This group will include 3,000 physicians, epidemiologists and policy- and communications specialists, as well as diplomats working under the WHO’s direction.

Gates scolded rich countries for taking less action to flood poorer nations with vaccines than he “Expected” – and repeatedly demanded over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic. He called for developed nations to unite to implement systems that would prevent another pandemic, arguing that “your survival [with Covid-19]It was partly dependent on your income, your race, and where you lived..” However, the US, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, also had one of the highest death tolls from the disease, faring noticeably worse than many African nations.

The billionaire philanthropist’s ideas appear to dovetail with the WHO’s own plans for a global pandemic treaty, currently being negotiated in order to “Set out the basic principles and objectives to guide the organization of the required collective action in fighting pandemics.” Heavy on surveillance, vaccinations, and “Restoring trust in the international medical system,” the agreement would be legally binding under international law, superseding the regulations of individual countries and ensuring all nations act as one in response to future outbreaks.

First devised by European Council president Charles Michel in November 2020, the agreement was outlined in a call for an “International treaty regarding pandemic preparedness and prevention” issued in March 2021 by a group of 25 heads of government and NGOs. Their publication declared that no single government, or even public-private partnership like the WHO, could sufficiently address the problems that would come with future pandemics and called for a treaty “It is anchored in the World Health Organization’s constitution” and backed by existing “International Health Regulations.” It was quickly backed by the G7 and World Health Assembly.

The idea of such an all-powerful entity being drawn up and foisted upon humanity without a public vote has rubbed many the wrong way, and groups like the World Council for Health have scrambled to mount an opposition to the plan, but it’s questionable that any grassroots opposition mounted at the eleventh hour will be able to challenge an effort backed by all 194 members of the WHO. It plans to sign its agreement on pandemics at the World Health Assembly in 2024.