Experts at a recent AHF-led Civil 20 Side Event – “A Global Public Health Convention for the 21st Century” – made it clear: G20 leaders must develop a new, comprehensive framework that promotes cooperation, transparency, and accountability among countries to respond to current and future global public health emergencies.
Panelists addressed many pressing topics, including the need for increased civil society engagement and solutions for vaccine development, procurement, and distribution inequities during public health emergencies. Experts also tackled the role of media in advancing global public health initiatives, fighting stigma and discrimination, and the importance of reaching vulnerable populations with lifesaving services, including HIV treatment, during crises.
“It was imperative like-minded experts and advocates meet at this C20 Summit to draft vital recommendations to G20 leaders that can help urgently reform the way the world prepares for and responds to global public health emergencies,” said Guillermina Alaniz, AHF Director of Global Advocacy and Policy. “We hope this panel’s efforts serve as an alarm for government leaders – the world has been and remains unprepared to respond to infectious disease outbreaks. It’s time for radical change to rectify that sad fact.”
Widescale outbreaks of infectious diseases of international concern, such as Ebola, Zika, COVID-19, and monkeypox, have increased over the last decade and are occurring alongside long-running crises, including AIDS, TB, and malaria, the re-emergence of polio and measles, and a resurgence of STIs, such as syphilis.
By drafting a reformed pandemic accord – a new Global Public Health Convention for the 21st Century – the world can maintain precious progress in fighting existing infectious diseases and be ready to combat the next inevitable worldwide health emergency.
AHF also hosted an exhibition booth along with the Side Event, which ran concurrently with the C20 Summit in Indonesia last month.