Video: Unpacking the Push for a Global Pandemic Accord
BU infectious diseases expert Nahid Bhadelia on the challenges of getting countries to learn from COVID-19 and cooperate on tackling future pandemics
The world was blindsided by COVID-19. Can it agree on a unified response to the next pandemic? One potential plan—the Pandemic Accord, negotiated by World Health Organization states—was among the issues discussed at the United Nations General Assembly’s recent high-level talks in New York. It’s a set of norms that would provide a collective global response to the next pandemic—if all member states agree to it. In our video mini explainer, Nahid Bhadelia, founding director of Boston University’s Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases Policy & Research and a former senior policy advisor to the White House’s COVID-19 Response Team, provides a breakdown of the proposed deal. Bhadelia, a BU Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine associate professor of infectious diseases, attended the UN talks, which looked at topics like incentivizing information sharing and ensuring equal vaccine distribution.
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