Hope for pandemic treaty fades

THE World Health Organization (WHO) held its 77th World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland, this past week, and the highlight of the annual gathering of representatives of the WHO's 194 member countries was supposed to be the presentation of a draft pandemic treaty. Work on the treaty, which was inspired by the global challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, has been going on for about two years, but unfortunately, that was not enough time to create the draft by this week's deadline. As things stand now, there is little hope that a global pandemic treaty can be forged anytime soon, if at all.