Importance Of Flu Pandemic Preparedness Confirmed By WHO Board Decision

One hundred years after the great Spanish flu pandemic, World Health Organization members today underlined their satisfaction with the organisation’s framework to get countries best prepared for the next pandemic: The WHO Executive Board agreed on keeping most of the funds coming to the framework for preparedness measures, and a smaller portion for response measures, unless emergency strikes.

The Executive Board, meeting this week from 22-27 January, today adopted a proposed decision following a recommendation by the Pandemic Influenza Preparedness (PIP) Framework Advisory Group to keep the proportional division of the PIP funds as they are currently used, for the period 2018-2022.

The proposed decision stated:

“(a) During the next five years (1 March 2018 to the end of 2022) the current proportional division between pandemic preparedness and response (70% of contributions for pandemic preparedness measures and 30% for response activities) should continue.

(b) In order to ensure that the proportional division does not hinder necessary response measures during pandemic influenza emergencies, the Director-General should continue to be able to modify temporarily the allocation of Partnership Contribution resources as required to respond to said emergencies. The Director-General should report on any such modification to Member States.

(c) The proportional division should be reviewed again in 2022.”

After a suggestion by Thailand, the wording of the decision was slightly amended (b) so that in case of emergency, the director general should report on modifications to the Executive Board, instead of just mentioning member states.

WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (Dr Tedros) agreed on Thailand’s suggestion, and said he is trying to promote the role of the bureau of the Executive Board, which, he said, for the moment has no function. An active bureau could serve as governance support for the WHO secretariat, he said.

The draft decision was included in the WHO report [pdf] on the PIP Framework for the Board.

The World Health Assembly in May is expected to confirm this decision.

The funds in the PIP Framework come from the partnership contribution. The partnership contribution is an essential element of the PIP benefit sharing system, through which influenza vaccine, diagnostic and pharmaceutical manufacturers who use the WHO Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS) pay an annual contribution to WHO.

Swaziland for the African region underlined the need for capacity building, as did India (not a member of the Board), saying capacity should be built to help the manufacturing of vaccines in developing countries. Indonesia, not a member of the Board, advocated for technology transfer for the development of vaccines.

The Netherlands voiced concerns about slowness of the use of funds for preparedness activities.

Peter Salama, WHO executive director of Health Emergencies Programme, said the delay in allocation of funds came in part from the delayed contribution by industry, and noted that a new Partnership Contribution High Level Implementation Plan (HLIP II) 2018-2023 is about to start.

 

Image Credits: Catherine Saez