WHO signs international pandemic response treaty without the U.S.

After three years of intensive negotiations, the World Health Organization on Tuesday adopted the world’s first agreement on how to cooperate and respond to future pandemics — without the support of the United States. The agreement was overwhelmingly passed in a vote of the World Health Assembly, an annual gathering of WHO member state delegations: 124 votes in favor, 11 abstentions and no objections. AdvertisementThe WHO Pandemic Agreement includes measures to bolster international coordination on pandemic preparedness and response, outlining that states should strengthen regulatory, research and domestic health systems. It will ensure we, collectively, can better protect the world from future pandemic threats,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the WHO, said in a statement Tuesday. He encouraged other states’ health ministers to consider joining him in a “new era of cooperation” outside the “limits of a moribund WHO.”