LONDON (CU)_Amid concerns from the United Kingdom and the United States over the level of access given to the recent World Health Organisation (WHO) team in China regarding the origins of COVID-19, the British Prime Minister has suggested forming a global treaty on pandemics, which would ensure transparency through sharing of data.
He noted that the world needs a general agreement to track data surrounding zoonotic pandemics, which could be achieved through a joint agreement on transparency.
“I think one of the attractive ideas that we have seen in the last few months has been a proposal for a global treaty on pandemics, so that signatory countries make sure that they contribute all the data they have and we are able to get to the bottom of what’s happened and stop it happening again,” he said during a news conference.
Meanwhile, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, wrote on Twitter that he welcomed the British Prime Minister’s recommendation to work together on a pandemic treaty in order to improve “global preparedness, resilience and recovery”.
As part of Britain’s presidency of the Group of Seven (G7) leading industrial nations, PM Johnson intends to lead efforts on a global approach to pandemics.
The COVID-19 pandemic, which was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019, has killed more than that 2.4 million people worldwide, and as also severely disrupted the lives and livelihoods of millions of people, tipping the global economy into its worst peacetime slump since the Great Depression.
Meanwhile on Sunday, Britain’s foreign minister Dominic Raab said the United Kingdom shared the concerns of the United States, regarding the level of access given to the WHO team who are on a mission in China to investigate Coronavirus origins.
When inquired on who should be held responsible for any lack of transparency on the origins of the pandemic, PM Johnson noted that “it’s fairly obvious” that most of the evidence seems to suggest that the disease originated in Wuhan.
“Therefore, I think we all need to see as much as we possibly can about how that might have happened, the zoonotic questions that people are asking. I think we need as much data as possible,” he said.
